Panda 2.0 (2011): global English rollout and blocked-site data

What Google changed#

On 11 April 2011, Google announced on its Webmaster Central blog that it had “rolled out this improvement globally to all English-language Google users.” The improvement was the algorithm Google had launched in the U.S. in February 2011 to help people find more high-quality sites.

Two things were new. First, “in some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms.” Second, the change “goes deeper into the ‘long tail’ of low-quality websites,” reaching sites the algorithm could not assess before.

The name Panda 2.0 did not come from Google. Google’s post called it the high-quality sites algorithm. Search Engine Land headlined its same-day report Panda 2.0, and the industry numbering stuck.

When it rolled out#

Google’s post, dated 11 April 2011 and written by Amit Singhal, said the change was rolled out “today.” Search Engine Land reported that it was live for all English queries worldwide, including English searches in non-English countries. Google stated no completion date and said it would keep testing before expanding to other languages.

What is known about its impact#

Google’s figure: “about 2% of U.S. queries are affected by a reasonable amount, compared with almost 12% of U.S. queries for the original change.” Google gave no figure for English queries outside the U.S. It said testing showed the algorithm “is very accurate at detecting site quality,” and that it was not making manual exceptions.

What site owners should do#

Panda no longer exists as a separate system. Google’s ranking systems guide lists it under retired systems and says it “evolved and became part of our core ranking systems in 2015.” Google’s current helpful content guidance covers the same questions:

• Check whether your pages provide original information, reporting, research or analysis.
• Improve or consolidate thin pages, since Panda assessed quality across the whole site.
• Give users no reason to block your site: content that answers the query well is the defence.

How to check whether it affected you#

This is historical. Search Console keeps 16 months of data, so April 2011 can only be checked in archived analytics, by comparing Google organic traffic from English-language markets outside the U.S. before and after 11 April 2011. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists every update with its dates.

Related updates#

• The Panda update of February 2011 was the original U.S. launch.
• Panda 4.0 in May 2014 was the next Panda update Google itself numbered.