What Is Panda?
Google Panda is an update made to Google’s search results ranking algorithm. First released in February 2011, Google Panda was originally created to filter out of low-quality websites from search engine results, and to make higher-quality websites rank better. Unlike common belief the name “Panda” was less named after the gentle panda bear animal, but instead after Google engineer Navneet Panda, who originally developed the technology that created and implemented the algorithm update.
There were a variety of search engine updates leading up to February 2011, but Google Panda was one of the leading algorithm updates that paved the way to a new and better Google search tool. Affecting approximately 12 percent of search engine results, Google Panda helped push the importance of developing quality websites and content.
If you think your website has been affected by the Panda updates, it’s very important to start writing much better quality content for your website visitors immediately (like published-in-a-professional-journal quality of content). Also be sure to replace any of your old content that might be considered low-quality to Google (e.g. duplicate, thin, or machine-generated). The sooner you remove hazardous content and replace it with high-quality content, the better your site will perform on Google.
Major updates between this period include the following:
• Panda Update 1: Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
• Panda Update 2: April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
• Panda Update 3: May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 4: June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 5: July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 6: Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
• Panda Update 7: Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 8: Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
• Panda Update 9: Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
• Panda Update 10:, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 11: Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
• Panda Update 12: March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
• Panda Update 13: April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
• Panda Update 14: April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
• Panda Update 15: June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
• Panda Update 16: June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
• Panda Update 17: July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
• Panda Update 18: Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
• Panda Update 19: Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
• Panda Update 20: Sep. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
• Panda Update 21: Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 22: Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
• Panda Update 23: Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
• Panda Update 24: Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Panda
