Panda update (2011): what it changed and what it means now

What Google changed#

On 24 February 2011, Google announced “a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking” on its official blog. It was “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites,” which Google described as sites that add little value, copy content from other websites or are not very useful. In return it aimed to rank higher sites “with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis.”

The name Panda came from Google. Asked for the code name by Wired, Amit Singhal said: “we named it internally after an engineer, and his name is Panda.” Before that, Wired noted, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land had been calling it Farmer because its apparent target was content farms. Farmer is the industry nickname; Panda is Google’s name.

When it rolled out#

Google’s post, dated 24 February 2011, said the change launched “in the last day or so,” in the U.S. only. On 11 April 2011, Google rolled it out to all English-language users and began using data about sites that users blocked, in some high-confidence situations. Google stated no completion date for Panda, which it kept refining for years afterwards.

What is known about its impact#

Google’s figures: the launch “noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries.” The April expansion was smaller in scope, with “about 2% of U.S. queries” affected by a reasonable amount, compared with almost 12% for the original change. Google also said that, of the several dozen most-blocked domains in its Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, the change addressed 84%.

What site owners should do#

Panda no longer exists as a separate system. Google’s ranking systems guide lists it under retired systems: “it evolved and became part of our core ranking systems in 2015.” Its questions live on. In May 2011 Google published a list of questions for assessing quality, and its current helpful content guidance carries the same approach:

• Assess pages against Google’s helpful content questions, such as whether the content provides original information, reporting, research or analysis.
• Improve or consolidate thin and copied pages rather than adding more of them.
• Look at the site as a whole: Google described Panda as an algorithmic assessment of site quality.

How to check whether it affected you#

This is historical. Search Console keeps 16 months of data, so 2011 can only be checked in archived analytics, by comparing Google organic traffic before and after 24 February 2011 (U.S.) and 11 April 2011 (all English). The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists every update with its dates.

Later refreshes#

Google refreshed Panda many times before it joined core ranking. Panda 2.0, Panda 4.0, Panda 4.1 and Panda 4.2 have their own pages. Google did not number these releases; the numbers below are the ones Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable used.

• Panda 2.1 (confirmed 10 May 2011): Google called it a minor update, “far smaller” than Panda 2.0, and gave no figure.
• Panda 2.2 (confirmed 21 June 2011): Matt Cutts had said at SMX Advanced that it would improve scraper detection.
• Panda 2.3 (confirmed 26 July 2011): Google said it added “some new signals that help differentiate between higher- and lower-quality sites.”
• Panda 2.4 (12 August 2011): Google launched Panda in all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean, affecting “typically 6-9% of queries.”
• Panda 2.5 (confirmed 30 September 2011): Google confirmed a new iteration but shared no details of what it targeted.
• Panda 3.0 (reported 19 October 2011): Matt Cutts had warned of “Panda-related flux” with “less impact than previous updates (~2%).”
• Panda 3.1 (18 November 2011): Google called it a minor update affecting less than 1% of searches.
• Panda 3.2 (confirmed 26 January 2012): Google said it ran a data refresh about a week earlier, with no new signals.
• Panda 3.3 (27 February 2012): Google said it refreshed Panda data, “making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.”
• Panda 3.4 (23 March 2012): Google said “~1.6% of queries” were noticeably affected.
• Panda 3.5 (19 April 2012): Matt Cutts confirmed a Panda data refresh on that date a week later.
• Panda 3.6 (27 April 2012): Google confirmed a limited refresh, eight days after Panda 3.5.
• Panda 3.7 (8 June 2012): Google said less than 1% of U.S. queries and 1% worldwide were noticeably affected.
• Panda 3.8 (25 June 2012): a data refresh that Google said “noticeably affects only ~1% of queries worldwide.”
• Panda in Japanese and Korean (17 July 2012): Google launched Panda in both languages and said it affected about 5% of their queries.
• Panda 3.9 (24 July 2012): Google said “~1% of search results change enough to notice.”
• Panda 3.9.1 (20 August 2012): a data refresh that Google said noticeably affected “~1% of queries.”
• Panda 3.9.2 (18 September 2012): Google said “fewer than 0.7% of queries” were noticeably affected.
• Panda 20 (27 September 2012): an algorithm update, not only a data refresh; Matt Cutts said it affected about 2.4% of English queries.
• Panda 21 (5 November 2012): Google said it affected 1.1% of U.S. English queries and 0.4% worldwide.
• Panda 22 (21 November 2012): Google said 0.8% of English queries were noticeably affected.
• Panda 23 (21 December 2012): Google said “~1.3% of English queries” were noticeably affected.
• Panda 24 (22 January 2013): Google said 1.2% of English queries were affected.
• Panda 25 (14 March 2013): widely reported after Matt Cutts said an update was due, but Google declined to confirm it.
• Panda 26 (confirmed 18 July 2013): Google said the update was “more finely targeted.”

Related updates#

• The Mayday update was the previous quality-related ranking change, in 2010.
• The Page layout algorithm was the next site-quality change, in 2012.
• The May 2015 quality update came in the year Panda joined core ranking.