As you know, Google announced the launch of Penguin 4.0, the real time Penguin algorithm, on Friday September 23, 2016. Many want to know if it is fully rolled out - it doesn't seem so. Many want to know if it only started to roll out on Friday or if it started earlier.
As we covered then, we saw stronger signs of a Penguin roll out a day or two before and then reported on many Google updates in the month of September. All went unconfirmed.
John Mueller at Google wrote on Twitter that Google doesn't have a "start date" to announce for Penguin's launch. He said:
@dr_pete @methode afaik we don't have a start date to announce. not all visible changes are penguin, of course.
— John Mueller (@JohnMu) September 26, 2016
So I then asked did it roll out before September 23rd and Gary Illyes from Google asked, if it really matters:
@rustybrick @JohnMu @dr_pete what does it matter really
— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 26, 2016
If I had to guess, the rollout started a few days before the official launch but we saw signs of Google testing it even earlier. I honestly have no inside information, so that is just a guess.
Forum discussion at Twitter.