All those rumors of the Google Farmer/Panda update either being updated or rolling out more places were not valid. The real rollout happened yesterday afternoon and Google officially announced it yesterday.
Google said they have now pushed this update out "globally to all English-language Google users." So it should be live on Google.com, Google UK, Google Australia and so on. But it wouldn't be live on Google Israel and other non-English language properties.
What is interesting is that there have been zero signs of anyone really coming out of this update. So if you were impacted by the Farmer/Panda update back one and a half months ago, very few have claimed to have regained all of their traffic from Google since. I am surprised to have not seen mass claims of improvements from sites and webmasters impacted by this update. I am even more shocked since there was a global rollout yesterday.
Google said the algorithm works even "deeper into the “long tail” of low-quality websites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before." So if anything, it appears to impact even more sites and Google confirmed that, saying an additional "2% of U.S. queries" were impacted by this update. Impacted how? I do not think sites have claimed to be released from the algorithm update, even after updating their sites - but I do see more sites claiming they were hurt by this update.
Google calls this update an "improvement" and have received "a lot of positive responses" about the update. But if you read the webmaster threads and receive all the complaints I do from upset SEOs and webmasters, you may not agree. We still see a ton of stolen content ranking above original content and some say this pattern has increased. I am not sure.
Google also said they are have now begun to "incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms." As Vanessa Fox explained Google is using this as a "secondary, rather than primary factor. If the site fits the overall pattern that this algorithm targets, searcher blocking behavior may be used as confirmation." So I wouldn't put much significance in this blocking site feature in terms of use within the algorithm.
We have discussions on this ongoing in various forums, one webmaster said:
Sorry, Google. Your new and improved algorithm is only new, not improved. It's still very, very broken.Google cannot describe 'high quality' and low quality is only defined by being dumped in the Google rankings. This is a sad state of affairs.
Anyway - like I said, I still do not see any mass reports of sites being released from this update and I am surprised by that.
Our ongoing coverage and stories on the Content Farmer/Panda update:
- Google Update Underway? Farmer/Panda Hits Again?
- Google Smacks Down Webmaster Over Panda Update
- Google Mocking Those Impacted By Farmer/Panda Update?
- Is Google Rolling Out A Farmer / Panda Update?
- Status Check: Google Panda / Farmer Rebounds & UK Migration
- Coming Soon: Panda/Farmer Update At Google UK
- Being Rescued From The Google Panda / Farmer Update
- When To Use 404, NoIndex & 301 Redirects In Farmer/Panda Fix
- 40% Of SEOs Say Farmer/Panda Hurt Their Sites In Google
- Google: Remove Low Quality Content If You Were Impacted By Farmer/Panda
- I'm Hit! Get Your Google Rankings Back After Farmer/Panda
- How to Regain Your Rankings After the Farmer Update
- SEOs Chew On Wired's Interview With Cutts & Singhal On Farmer Update
- What's Your Name? Farmer Or Panda?
- Was Google Too Hasty with the Farmer Update? SEO's Discuss Good & Bad
- Google Accidentally Label Your Site As A Content Farm? Get Help Here
- Shocking: Google To Tweak Content Farm Algorithm
- Poll: Were You Impacted By The Google Farmer Update?
- Google Farmer Update Support Groups
- Google's Farmer Update Live: 12% Of Google's Results Forever Changed
- Google Warns Of "Big Changes Here Very Shortly"
- Correction: Google's Scraper Algorithm Now Live, Not Content Farms
- Google's Content Farm Algorithm Harm You? Categorize Your Site To Fix It.
- Confirmed: Google's Content Farm Algorithm Live! Sites Are Dropping!
- Google's Next Target: Content Farms & On Page Spam
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld,Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums.
