SEO Updates - 2012
Panda #23 — December 21, 2012
Right before the Christmas holiday, Google rolled
out another Panda update. They officially called it a "refresh",
impacting 1.3% of English queries. This was a slightly higher impact
than Pandas #21 and #22.
Knowledge Graph Expansion — December 4, 2012
Google added Knowledge Graph functionality to
non-English queries, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese,
Japanese, Russian, and Italian. This update was "more than just
translation" and added enhanced KG capabilities.
Panda #22 — November 21, 2012
After some mixed signals, Google confirmed the 22nd
Panda update, which appears to have been data-only. This came on the
heels of a larger, but unnamed update around November 19th.
Panda #21 — November 5, 2012
Google rolled out their 21st Panda update, roughly
5-1/2 weeks after Panda #20. This update was reported to be smaller,
officially impacting 1.1% of English queries.
Page Layout #2 — October 9, 2012
Google announced an update to its original page
layout algorithm change back in January, which targeted pages with
too many ads above the fold. It's unclear whether this was an
algorithm change or a Panda-style data refresh.
Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012
After suggesting the next Penguin update would be
major, Google released a minor Penguin data update, impacting "0.3%
of queries". Penguin update numbering was rebooted, similar to
Panda - this was the 3rd Penguin release.
August/September 65-Pack — October 4, 2012
Google published their monthly (bi-monthly?) list of
search highlights. The 65 updates for August and September included
7-result SERPs, Knowledge Graph expansion, updates to how "page
quality" is calculated, and changes to how local results are
determined.
Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September 27, 2012
Google announced a change in the way it was handling
exact-match domains (EMDs). This led to large-scale devaluation,
reducing the presence of EMDs in the MozCast data set by over 10%.
Official word is that this change impacted 0.6% of queries (by
volume).
Panda #20 — September 27, 2012
Overlapping the EMD update, a fairly major Panda
update (algorithm + data) rolled out, officially affecting 2.4% of
queries. As the 3.X series was getting odd, industry sources opted to
start naming Panda updates in order (this was the 20th).
Panda 3.9.2 (#19) — September 18, 2012
Google rolled out another Panda refresh, which
appears to have been data-only. Ranking flux was moderate but not on
par with a large-scale algorithm update.
Panda 3.9.1 (#18) — August 20, 2012
Google rolled out yet another Panda data update, but
the impact seemed to be fairly small. Since the Panda 3.0 series ran
out of numbers at 3.9, the new update was dubbed 3.9.1.
7-Result SERPs — August 14, 2012
Google made a significant change to the Top 10,
limiting it to 7 results for many queries. Our research showed that
this change rolled out over a couple of days, finally impacting about
18% of the keywords we tracked.
DMCA Penalty — August 10, 2012
Google announced that they would start penalizing
sites with repeat copyright violations, probably via DMCA take-down
requests. Timing was stated as "starting next week"
(8/13?).
June/July 86-Pack — August 10, 2012
After a summer hiatus, the June and July Search
Quality Highlights were rolled out in one mega-post. Major updates
included Panda data and algorithm refreshes, an improved
rank-ordering function (?), a ranking boost for "trusted
sources", and changes to site clustering.
Panda 3.9 (#17) — July 24, 2012
A month after Panda 3.8, Google rolled out a new
Panda update. Rankings fluctuated for 5-6 days, although no single
day was high enough to stand out. Google claimed ~1% of queries were
impacted.
Link Warnings — July 19, 2012
In a repeat of March/April, Google sent out a large
number of unnatural link warnings via Google Webmaster Tools. In a
complete turn-around, they then announced that these new warnings may
not actually represent a serious problem.
Panda 3.8 (#16) — June 25, 2012
Google rolled out another Panda data refresh, but
this appeared to be data only (no algorithm changes) and had a much
smaller impact than Panda 3.7.
Panda 3.7 (#15) — June 8, 2012
Google rolled out yet another Panda data update,
claiming that less than 1% of queries were affect. Ranking
fluctuation data suggested that the impact was substantially higher
than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6).
May 39-Pack — June 7, 2012
Google released their monthly Search Highlights,
with 39 updates in May. Major changes included Penguin improvements,
better link-scheme detection, changes to title/snippet rewriting, and
updates to Google News.
Penguin 1.1 (#2) — May 25, 2012
Google rolled out its first targeted data update
after the "Penguin" algorithm update. This confirmed that
Penguin data was being processed outside of the main search index,
much like Panda data.
Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012
In a major step toward semantic search, Google
started rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a SERP - integrated
display providing supplemental object about certain people, places,
and things. Expect to see "knowledge panels" appear on more
and more SERPs over time. Also, Danny Sullivan's favorite Trek is
ST:Voyager?!
April 52-Pack — May 4, 2012
Google published details of 52 updates in April,
including changes that were tied to the "Penguin" update.
Other highlights included a 15% larger "base" index,
improved pagination handling, and a number of updates to site-links.
Panda 3.6 (#14) — April 27, 2012
Barely a week after Panda 3.5, Google rolled out yet
another Panda data update. The implications of this update were
unclear, and it seemed that the impact was relatively small.
Penguin — April 24, 2012
After weeks of speculation about an
"Over-optimization penalty", Google finally rolled out the
"Web Spam Update", which was soon after dubbed "Penguin."
Penguin adjusted a number of spam factors, including keyword
stuffing, and impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.
Panda 3.5 (#13) — April 19, 2012
In the middle of a busy week for the algorithm
Google quietly rolled out a Panda data update. A mix of changes made
the impact difficult to measure, but this appears to have been a
fairly routine update with minimal impact.
Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012
After a number of webmasters reported ranking
shuffles, Google confirmed that a data error had caused some domains
to be mistakenly treated as parked domains (and thereby devalued).
This was not an intentional algorithm change.
March 50-Pack — April 3, 2012
Google posted another batch of update highlights,
covering 50 changes in March. These included confirmation of Panda
3.4, changes to anchor-text "scoring", updates to image
search, and changes to how queries with local intent are interpreted.
Panda 3.4 (#12) — March 23, 2012
Google announced another Panda update, this time via
Twitter as the update was rolling out. Their public statements
estimated that Panda 3.4 impacted about 1.6% of search results.
Search Quality Video — March 12, 2012
This wasn't an algorithm update, but Google
published a rare peek into a search quality meeting. For anyone
interested in the algorithm, the video provides a lot of context to
both Google's process and their priorities.
Panda 3.3 (#11) — February 27, 2012
Google rolled out another post-"flux"
Panda update, which appeared to be relatively minor. This came just 3
days after the 1-year anniversary of Panda, an unprecedented lifespan
for a named update.
February 40-Pack (2) — February 27, 2012
Google published a second set of "search
quality highlights" at the end of the month, claiming more than
40 changes in February. Notable changes included multiple
image-search updates, multiple freshness updates (including phasing
out 2 old bits of the algorithm), and a Panda update.
Venice — February 27, 2012
As part of their monthly update, Google mentioned
code-name "Venice". This local update appeared to more
aggressively localize organic results and more tightly integrate
local search data. The exact roll-out date was unclear.
February 17-Pack — February 3, 2012
Google released another round of "search
quality highlights" (17 in all). Many related to speed,
freshness, and spell-checking, but one major announcement was tighter
integration of Panda into the main search index.
Ads Above The Fold — January 19, 2012
Google updated their page layout algorithms to
devalue sites with too much ad-space above the "fold". It
was previously suspected that a similar factor was in play in Panda.
The update had no official name, although it was referenced as "Top
Heavy" by some SEOs.
Panda 3.2 (#10) — January 18, 2012
Google confirmed a Panda data update, although
suggested that the algorithm hadn't changed. It was unclear how this
fit into the "Panda Flux" scheme of more frequent data
updates.
Search + Your World — January 10, 2012
Google announced a radical shift in personalization
- aggressively pushing Google+ social data and user profiles into search engine result pages. Google also added a new, prominent toggle button to shut off
personalization.
January 30-Pack — January 5, 2012
Google announced 30 changes over the previous month,
including image search landing-page quality detection, more relevant
site-links, more rich snippets, and related-query improvements. The
line between an "algorithm update" and a "feature" got
a bit more blurred.
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