Google's Matt Cutts Said Pay Day Loan Algorithm Rolled Out But Did It?

As I reported from the airport Thursday night at Search Engine Land, Google's Matt Cutts said the Payday Loan Algorithm was rolling out but truth is, I haven't seen signs of it.

In fact, I've asked many folks in the black hat and spammy categories about this and they've seen nothing. There is only one site I see reporting any changes and even there I am not convinced.

As you know, the Google Payday Loan 3.0 algorithm was released, targeting spammy queries over spammy sites - whatever that means. But even though it began rolling out Thursday night, as Matt Cutts said on Twitter - I do not see reports from within the community about it.

@BtotheMcG it's rolling out now!

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) June 12, 2014

What I do see are sites not in the spammy category reporting major changes in their rankings. The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has folks complaining of major shifts starting Thursday night/Friday - but they are not in the spammy categories.

Here are some complaints:

I'm not in a spammy category (consumer electronics) and my site was pushed down for no apparent reason with this update. Seems Google messed something up.

I'm not in a spammy category. I've been decimated sad We can't pay our bills now.

Meanwhile the site that never gets updated, that rips off other content got a nice boost. Way to go.

Some benefited, as you would imagine:

We don't know what Google classifies as "spammy". But I'd say consumer electronics queries might indeed fall into that category. Take a look how many (legit and automated) sites are out there.

I had a nice boost on June 12th. Consumer electronics too, with high quality indepth (often 6000+ words) articles.

A senior member I think has it right, saying this was a slight modification to the Panda 4 algorithm:

I've noticed a slight drop in traffic since Thursday.

I've compared my (low level) bing and yahoo traffic to google and as best I can tell it seems just related to google.

I benefited from the recent Panda 4.0. A couple of other people posting here have have mentioned slight drops in traffic and a positive Panda 4 effect.

I'd bet that Google has tweaked the Panda 4 algo.

In regard to the PayDay algo, I don't think that would much apply to my content.

Scanning the Black Hat World forums, there is very little chatter there. Most of the chatter is asking, did you see anything? Where most people are saying, "I saw some minor fluctuations for a few of my sites but really nothing major" and the like.

I asked Matt Cutts on Twitter if there really was a PayDay Loan 3.0 and didn't get a response:

@mattcutts did PayDay Loan really roll out last night? :-)

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) June 13, 2014

I suspect what most of you are seeing is a small update to Panda 4.0 and not Pay Day Loan specific. But I am not Google and I do not have inside information.

Forum discussion at Twitter, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World .