Google Panda 4.2 Is Here; Slowly Rolling Out After Waiting Almost 10 Months

Google tells Search Engine Land that it pushed out a Google Panda refresh this weekend.

Many of you may not have noticed because this rollout is happening incredibly slowly. In fact, Google says the update can take months to fully roll out. That means that although the Panda algorithm is still site-wide, some of your Web pages might not see a change immediately.

The last time we had an official Panda refresh was almost 10 months ago: Panda 4.1 happened on September 25, 2014. That was the 28th update, but I would coin this the 29th or 30th update, since we saw small fluctuations in October 2014.

As far as I know, very few webmasters noticed a Google update this weekend. That is how it should be, since this Panda refresh is rolling out very slowly.

Google said this affected about 2%–3% of English language queries.

New Chance For Some, New Penalty For Others

The rollout means anyone who was penalized by Panda in the last update has a chance to emerge if they made the right changes. So if you were hit by Panda, you unfortunately won’t notice the full impact immediately but you should see changes in your organic rankings gradually over time.

This is not how many of the past Panda updates rolled out, where typically you’d see a significant increase or decline in your Google traffic more quickly.

For the record, here’s the list of confirmed Panda Updates, with some of the major changes called out with their AKA (also known as) names:

1. Panda Update 1, AKA Panda 1.0, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
2. Panda Update 2, AKA Panda 2.0, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
3. Panda Update 3, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
4. Panda Update 4, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
5. Panda Update 5, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
6. Panda Update 6, Aug. 12, 2011 (6–9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
7. Panda Update 7, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
8. Panda Update 8 AKA Panda 3.0, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
9. Panda Update 9, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
10. Panda Update 10, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
11. Panda Update 11, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
12. Panda Update 12, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
13. Panda Update 13, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
14. Panda Update 14, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
15. Panda Update 15, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
16. Panda Update 16, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
17. Panda Update 17, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
18. Panda Update 18, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
19. Panda Update 19, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
20. Panda Update 20 , Sept. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
21. Panda Update 21, Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
22. Panda Update 22, Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
23. Panda Update 23, Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
24. Panda Update 24, Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
25. Panda Update 25, March 15, 2013 (confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened)
26. Panda Update 26, July 18, 2013 (confirmed, announced)
27. Panda Update 27 AKA Panda 4.0, May 20, 2014 (7.5% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
28. Panda Update 28 AKA Panda 4.1, Sept. 25, 2014 (3–5% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
29. Panda Update 30 AKA Panda 4.2, July 18, 2015 (2–3% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced)

Google “Phantom” Update Rolling Out Targeting Informational, ‘How-To’ Content

NBC reports that an undisclosed, “phantom” algorithm update is rolling out in Google search right now which is primarily impacting publishers of “how-to” style content.

HubPages, a collection of more than 870,000 miniblogs containing informational content about wide varieties of topics, saw its Google search traffic drop 22 percent from one week to another on May 3.

Websites like eHow, WikiHow, and Answers.com are other sites that have seen significant drops in traffic over the past couple of weeks.

Glenn Gabe, of New Jersey-based G-Squared Interactive, is the one to coin the phrase “Phantom” update because this update came without warning, and Google has yet to acknowledge its existence.

Through analyzing the data, Gabe has determined that this udpdate is not related to Panda or Penguin. However, similar types of “thin” content targeted by Panda are also being targeted by this update.

Gabe points out that clickbait articles, sites with an abundance supplementary information, pages of stacked videos, and pages difficult to navigate have all lost visibility in recent weeks.

This update is said to be “ruthless” in its approach — apparently having no problem punishing entire domains for a few instances of thin content.

“When you have a domain-level algorithm update or ranking change, it can impact the whole site… Pages that should be drawing well could also be pulled down in the results.”

Google has not formally commented on this update, although at SMX Sydney this week Gary Illyes, from Google’s Webmaster Trends team, alluded to there being a recent change that’s part of a core algorithm update.

With Google’s Knowledge Graph being notorious for detracting traffic from sites for “how to” searches, coupled with this “Phantom” update, being a content publisher is more challenging than ever. Even Gabe, who analyzes search data for a living, admits to not being able to predict what business will look like tomorrow, next week, next month, etc.

Have you noticed a significant change in your traffic since the beginning of May? If so, what types of content do you believe was targeted? Details are scarce at this point, so any information we can get is valued.

Here Are the 7 Ways to Improve Google Rankings For Your Website

With increasing number of websites, the war of ranking higher or on the top three has become harder and harder. However, such tough competition can be won by following some simple rules as advice by the search engine giant Google.

1. Do not try to outsmart Google

Many developers think that they can fool Google by using some tricks to rank higher in Google search results. What they fail to understand is the fact that their trick might work for a few days but once Google catches them the page or website will either be penalized or will jump to the bottom. It is always better to follow the rules laid by Google and to create a website that not only meets all the ranking criteria’s but also standout amongst all the other web pages.

2. Keyword for ranking

Selecting or targeting the right keyword is the only way to achieve the desired result. While users can use the various available online tools, getting a keyword audit can also prove to be beneficial. Selecting through vast number of keywords can be tricky and optimizing the keyword another big hurdle while creating a website.

3. Design of the web page

The entire layout of the web page plays a very important role in the ranking of the page on search engine. Do not forget to appropriately use Title tags, SEO titles, meta descriptions, alt tags and Images and image naming conventions. Some other important things to pay attention to are ratio of text to HTML, Length of copy on pages, number of indexed pages, canonical URL structure, domain age and site loading speed.

4. Boost site security

Increasing number of cases of security breaches has made security protocols stricter and tougher. Breaches such as identity theft, Adware, Clickjacking and many others were in the news most recently. To curb such problems, Google ranks those sites higher which have security certification and HTTPS encryption.

5. Publish quality content frequently

Updating fresh and good quality content on a regular basis increases ranking in the search result. Quality of the content is measured on the parameters such as human engagement and algorithm predicts.

6. Do Strategic Link Building

Link building is one of the most important parts of ranking in Google’s search result page. However, linking to authentic website is what counts. It adds to the credibility of the site.

Buying links to get faster result might end-up penalizing the page if the sources are not legal.

7. Mobile-Friendly website

As mobile phones have taken the center stage, today websites that are mobile-friendly are counted amongst the top result during searches.

Doorway Page Penalty: Google’s Doorway Page Penalty Algorithm 2015

Google announced that it’s making a change in the future to how it ranks ‘doorway pages’ and is encouraging users to stop utilizing them for SEO ahead of the changes.

In an effort to improve the overall quality of its search results, Google has announced that it will start to launch ranking adjustments for doorway pages in search results.

Doorway pages are pages that exist for no other reason than to rank in search results. Some websites may create multiple doorway pages all ranking for the same term, which do not offer any unique value on their own because of the fact that the subject matter is similar, and they ultimately drive visitors back to the same place.

It’s easy to confuse doorway pages with landing pages, but they’re not the same thing. A landing page provides useful information for the user who visited whereas a doorway page simply tricks the user into coming to the site by showing irrelevant information in search results.

For example, searchers might get a list of results that all go to the same site. So if a user clicks on one result, doesn’t like it, and then tries the next result in the search results page and is taken to that same site that they didn’t like, that’s a really frustrating experience.

Over time, we’ve seen sites try to maximize their “search footprint” without adding clear, unique value. These doorway campaigns manifest themselves as pages on a site, as a number of domains, or a combination thereof. To improve the quality of search results for our users, we’ll soon launch a ranking adjustment to better address these types of pages. Sites with large and well-established doorway campaigns might see a broad impact from this change.

To help webmasters better understand Google guidelines, I’ve added clarifying examples and freshened our definition of doorway pages in our Quality Guidelines.

Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:

1. Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience?

2. Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?

3. Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?

4. Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?

5. Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?

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