Google rolls out Panda 4.0 Update

Matt Cutts from Google has announced the release of Google panda algorithm version 4.0 on twitter. This algorithm aims at keeping the sites with poor content from making it to the top of the search results. Yes Google stopped refreshing us with the panda updates, but this a major one.

This is not a usual data refresh but a major change in the actual algorithm. The change is about how the sites are identified by Panda. Will this prove to be gentle for the sites? Google says it will be to some and will serve as groundwork for the later changes. The impact of panda 4.0 ranges from different degrees to different languages.

Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 20, 2014

The last update “Panda Update 25” was released on March 15, 2013. Google introduced this algorithm in 2011 with the aim of lowering the ranks of the thin sites or the poor quality sites. Soon after that ‘CNET reported a drop for poor sites’ rankings and a surge in good quality sites that included social networking sites and news websites. As found the change affected the search results by 12%. But, soon after this the Google webmaster forum started getting many complaints regarding scrapers getting better rankings when compared to the sites with original content. As a help for the publishers affected by panda algorithm, Google introduced the concept of self – evaluation of one’s website’s quality.