A Google Update Brewing?

Filed Under Google PageRank & Algorithm Updates

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a nice uptick in chatter this weekend starting 

around Saturday but staying strong throughout Sunday on ranking changes and traffic changes.

It looks like the changes started later Friday when member, backdraft7, said:

Looks like somebody tripped on the network cable on our server again. NO traffic for long periods today. 20 and 30 minute periods of absolutely NOTHING! Well, at least it can't get any worse that zero? Can it? Come on what gives? I'm still in the serps, but ZERO? Did every on the planet die?

Several SEOs and webmasters also noticed major changes afterwards.

Another SEO added, "Traffic STOPPED completely 30 minutes or so ago. WOW is all I can say..."

Like all ranking fluctuations discussed in these threads, it doesn't mean there was a global update or anything. It can be site specific or even a bug with the site or Google.

One other Webmaster added:

We saw similar patterns yesterday. Not "zero" traffic, but huge drops in traffic at times during the day. Mostly in the afternoon as the morning started off normal (Central time zone). I kept checking the news to see if some disaster had struck that was taking everyone's attention away because like you, our SERPS hadn't changed so it made no sense.

Honestly, I don't think this will be a major update like anything Penguin or Panda related. But I'll stay on top of it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's Panda Update Graduates To Rolling Update

Filed Under Google PageRank & Algorithm Updates

Last night at SMX West, Google's Matt Cutts announced that the Panda algorithm will be more of a rolling update, as opposed to what it has been as a manually pushed out update.

I am not sure what I am going to do with my time now. I am no longer going to be able to get confirmations from Google about Panda updates. The updates are going to be less transparent to webmasters and SEOs. They will likely happen more frequently and have less of an impact on the overall search results. At least that is my take.

I posted the audio file of Matt saying this at Search Engine Land:

Rather than having some huge change that happens on a given day. You are more likely in the future to see Panda deployed gradually as we rebuild the index. So you are less likely to see these large scale sorts of changes.

So the update that is rolling out over the weekend might not be that noticeable to you and I.

I should note, we asked in the past if Panda was a rolling update and it wasn't. So it looks like now it is.

Here are the past Panda updates:

• Panda #24 on January 22, 2013
• Panda #23 on December 21, 2012
• Panda #22 on November 21st
• Panda #22 on November 21st
• Panda #21 on November 5th
• Panda #20 on September 27th
• Panda 3.9.2 on September 18th
• Panda 3.9.1 on August 20th
• Panda 3.9 on July 24th
• Panda 3.8 on June 25th
• Panda 3.7 on June 9th
• Panda 3.6 on April 27th
• Panda 3.5 on April 19th
• Panda 3.4 on March 23rd
• Panda 3.3 on about February 26th
• Panda 3.2 on about January 15th
• Panda 3.1 on November 18th
• Panda 2.5.3 on October 19/20th
• Panda 2.5.2 on October 13th
• Panda 2.5.1 on October 9th
• Panda 2.5 on September 28th
• Panda 2.4 in August
• Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd.
• Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
• Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
• Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
• Panda 1.0 on February 24th

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google's Cutts: Next Generation Penguin Update Will Be Big

Filed Under Google PageRank & Algorithm Updates

Last night, Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts announced at SMX West (which I live blogged and reported at Search Engine Land) that a "next generation" of Penguin is coming in 2013.

This one should be big. I specifically asked, what will SEOs be talking about in 2013? What will be the next big Google algorithmic change that is the talk of 2013 amongst SEOs and Webmasters.

Matt did not mention the merchant quality algorithmbut he did specifically say it might be the next generation of the Penguin update.

Matt said his team is currently working on it and this will be a big change to how Penguin works. So when it is released, sometime in 2013, I assume sooner than later, this will send some ripples through the SEO space.

This would technically be named Penguin 4. The last official Penguin release was Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012, which was over 5 months ago. In fact, we only had two updates to Penguin since it's original release on April 24, 2012:

• Penguin 1 on April 24, 2012
• Penguin 2 on May 24, 2012
• Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012

When will Penguin 4 happen? Again, Matt did not say, but if I had to guess, sometime in Q2 2013.

Forum discussion at Google+ and WebmasterWorld.

Google Rarely Updates The Penguin Algorithm

Filed Under Google Search Engine Optimization

It has almost been five months since the last Penguin refresh and no updates to the Penguin algorithm are in sight.

In fact, I reported yesterday at Search Engine Land that No, Google Hasn’t Released Unannounced Penguin Updates. Why did I have to report that? Couple reasons:

(1) There was some speculation based on a video hangout with John Mueller that Penguin refreshed regularly. It does not, it never did, and the truth is, it refreshes very rarely.

(2) It has been almost five months since an official Penguin update and I wanted to make sure we didn't miss any updates.

Google has told us that Penguin is rarely refreshed, unlike Panda and we didn't miss any Penguin refreshes since.

What was John talking about? He was talking about normal link analysis is refreshed and rerun continuously.

I posted this on my Google+ page and then someone brought up the Zebra update. There is no such thing, stop asking me about Zebras. There was not a Zebra update.

Forum discussion at Google+.