Panda was initially rolled out in the United States when it launched in February 2011. By April, Google implemented the algorithmic changes to all English queries even those coming from non-English speaking countries. A month after, the developers tweaked a few things that affected the SERPs but insisted that these were relatively minor compared to previous updates.
With Panda 2.0, Google expanded the improvement worldwide to all English-language Google users. It came with new user feedback signals to facilitate queries and providing them with better search results. One added feature was a block link that can be found directly in the results pages, which enabled users to exclude specific websites from being displayed in the SERPs. In this update, the team incorporated data from this function and Chrome’s Site Blocker into the algorithms.
Another significant benefit of Panda 2.0 was that it dug deeper into the “long tail” of low-quality websites which the algorithm might not have evaluated previously. This helps in ensuring that the search engine can return better results to users.
Panda 2.1, on the other hand, was initially deemed as Panda 3.0. However, because it only consisted of minor changes in the algorithm, the name was changed to 2.1. The team at Google themselves described the update as far smaller than Panda 2.0.
While Panda 2.0 has a more significant impact than 2.1, it still was smaller in scope than the first change. It only affected approximately two percent of US queries, which is lower than the 12 percent that the first Panda update garnered. As for 2.1, the developers didn’t release the number of searches impacted by the slight changes they made in the algorithm.
Google has also admitted that they’re confident in the algorithm’s ability to detect site quality. Although many webmasters vented out their frustrations over the losses they experienced with their sites’ rankings, the team recommends evaluating the various aspects of their domains and improve the sections that aren’t up to par with the search engine’s quality guidelines.
The team at Google continuously makes algorithmic changes here and there to provide the most relevant and complete results to users. While Panda may play a significant role in your site’s rankings in the SERPs, there are a lot of factors that contribute to it. Instead of fixating on catering to the changes that came along with Panda, you should ensure that you have a top-notch website overall.
Here are a few questions you can ask to get an idea of how Google determines what a high-quality site is: