Panda and Penguin Updates Roll out the Same Way
The Panda and Penguin updates have been around for several years now and so has the speculation as to how often they are updated. Penguin was always thought to be a manual update that took place as needed, while some believed Panda happened more automatically and regularly.
Well, John Mueller set us straight when he was asked a question regarding recovering from a drop in rankings in which the asker assumed Panda updates were automatic and ongoing. At the 41:30 point in this Google+ Hangout John Mueller said this:
I think both of those algorithms currently aren't updating the data regularly. So that is something for both of them, where we kind of have to push the updates as well.
While his answer is a bit vague it does eliminate any doubt as to how the updates are handled. To see the rest of his answer regarding how to deal with a drop in rankings or to view the entire Hangout, the video is below.
Did you feel that Panda update?
There has been a growing number of reports starting Friday, May 2nd about another possible Panda update. We ourselves didn't see much movement until much later in the weekend. If you saw any affects from this update then we hope they were positive. However, if you saw a drop in traffic then maybe it's time to read our 2 part series on avoiding and recovering from Google's most common penalties.
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