A month ago, Google told us they would provide clarity over Panda updates since we were not sure if Google's contradictory statements around Panda running in real time versus not running since October.
Well, it is now over six months since a Panda update and just a couple weeks ago, Google's John Mueller told us both Panda and Penguin are pushed manually which specifically contradicts the statements around them being real time.
Danny Sullivan and I have been working on getting clarity on this from Google but then they simply said no, we have nothing more to add on the matter after months of trying. So last night Danny wrote Google Panda & Penguin Lack Real-Time Updates, Despite Google’s Past Statements, you should go read that.
In a Google+ thread, Rae Hoffman has been giving it to Google over the confusion and contradictory information they've been giving.
So John Mueller of Google responds that he knows it sucks but it wasn't by design and they will likely have more cases of this but again, they will try to limit it. Here is what he wrote:
Rae Hoffman I agree, that sucks. Please call us out when you see that happening. I don't think we can eliminate all of these cases, sometimes the basis of a comment changes internally, but it's certainly not by design.
Yes, it really does suck. It makes it look like Google has no clue what they are doing. It makes it hard for SEOs and webmasters to communicate to their clients. It makes it hard to build a better web all around.
Danny wrote the ultimate solution for this is likely an automated action viewer in Google Webmaster Tools but I can't see that happening that soon.
Forum discussion at Google+.
