There are official reports from Google that the next Panda update has rolled out internationally to most languages except for Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Despite recent reports, this appears to be the real deal. A WebmasterWorld thread was one of the first to catch it and has ongoing discussion about the impact of this recent update.
According to Google:
Today we’re continuing that effort by rolling out our algorithmic search improvements in different languages... this change impacts typically 6-9% of queries to a degree that a user might notice. This is distinctly lower than the initial launch of Panda, which affected almost 12% of English queries to a noticeable amount.
Some webmasters from WebmasterWorld are reporting a loss of traffic specifically in international areas that once were not affected by Panda.
Past Google Panda Updates:
- Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd.
- Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
- Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
- Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
- Panda 1.0 on February 24th
Continued discussion at WebmasterWorld
Update from Barry: Here is a video from Matt of Google on this update:
Honestly, I bet the Panda 2.4 we reported a few days before this were live tests. Anyway, it is officially live.