Google’s Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have released version 4.0 of the Google Panda algorithm.
It’s a statement to strike fear into the heart of anyone who relies on
organic visits from Google for their business or their clients’
business.
New Google Panda 4.0 algorithm is designed to prevent sites with poor quality contents from working their way into Google’s top search results.
But didn’t Google stop updating us on Panda refreshes and updates since they are monthly rolling updates? Yes, but this is a bigger update.
Panda 4.0 must be a major update to the actual algorithm versus just a
data refresh. Meaning, Google has made changes to how Panda identifies
sites and has released a new version of the algorithm today.
Is this the softer and gentler
Panda algorithm? From talking to Google, it sounds like this update
will be gentler for some sites, and lay the groundwork for future
changes in that direction.
Google told us that Panda 4.0 affects different languages to
different degrees. In English for example, the impact is ~7.5% of
queries that are affected to a degree that a regular user might notice.
