I received emails containing screenshots and tweets with images from Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. It was amazing to see, and it confirmed that we had just experienced a Panda update in the middle of a multi-week Penguin rollout. Yes, read that line again. Panda during Penguin, right when the internet world was clearly focused on Penguin 3.0.
… very sneaky. 🙂
So, following on from what I explained earlier about webmaster confusion and the algorithm, can you explain what happened next? Yes, there was massive confusion. We had the trifecta of algorithm updates with Penguin, Pirate, and now Panda.
Webmaster confusion and a reminder of the algo sandwich from 2012
So, we had a major algorithm update during two other major algorithm updates (Penguin and Pirate) and webmaster confusion was reaching an telegram number list extremely high level. And I don’t blame anyone for the confusion. I’m very deep into this stuff and it confused me at first.
Was the October 24th update a Penguin earthquake or was it something else? Could it be a pirate? And if it really was Panda, it would have been account based marketing and inbound marketing great if Google had told us it was Panda! Or did they want to kill off SEOs analyzing Penguin and Pirate? Does anyone have a padded room I can crawl into?
Once I realized it was Panda, and started communicating the update via Twitter and my blog, I had a lot of people ask me a very important question:
“Glen, will Google really roll out two or
Three algorithm updates at once, or at the same time?”
Why yes, they will. Anyone remember the Christmas Island Businesses Directory April 2012 algorithm sandwich? That’s when Google rolled out Panda on April 19, then Penguin 1.0 on April 24, followed by Panda on April 27. Yes, we had three algorithm updates in the space of ten days. And let’s not forget that the Penguin update on April 24, 2012 was the first of its kind ! So yes, Google can, and will, roll out multiple major algorithms at once.