Google’s Gary Illyes has confirmed that Google started rolling out Panda update version 4.2 last weekend, affecting 2–3% of queries.
If you haven’t felt any impact from the update yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the clear. Panda 4.2 will take a few months to fully roll out, Illyes says, so you may not notice it for a while if at all.
In fact, there has been little evidence of an update thus far. Moz’s search results monitoring tool, the Mozcast, showed no signs of any unusual activity this past weekend.
For the most part, SEOs on Twitter and search forums haven’t reported on any Panda-like activity in the search rankings for their clients.
Not seeing any obvious evidence of Panda wins or losses in my data so far. A long rollout is going to make interpretation difficult.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) July 22, 2015
I've reviewed my Panda data multiple times to gauge the impact from Panda 4.2 so far. Not much movement at all on Panda-susceptible sites.
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 23, 2015
This could either be due to the length of time of the rollout, or it could be due to the fact that the update is only affecting 2–3% of search queries.
By comparison, the previous Panda update was reported to affect 3–5% of queries, and the one before that was reported to affect around 7.5% of queries.
With such a small percentage of queries being affected, sites susceptible to either Panda penalties or recoveries may not be impacted by this update — or they may not be impacted for a few months from now.
Since posting the above tweet, Glenn Gabe has taken to monitoring his sites every morning and reported seeing some dips and surges in traffic:
Here's another screenshot from my Panda 4.2 travels. Check out this drop. Ouch. #seo pic.twitter.com/nPWD8plJDP
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 24, 2015
And here's an example of the opposite. A big surge from Panda 4.2. And the initial uptick started on 7/14. #seo pic.twitter.com/pUf9s4luye
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 24, 2015
I expect we’ll see many more reports of traffic fluctuations over the coming weeks as Panda 4.2 continues to roll out.
If you’ve notice any significant changes in traffic patterns since last weekend, please comment with your findings below or tweet at me on Twitter.
Featured Image: Lee Yiu Tung/Shutterstock.com
