Google began rolling out the latest update, known as Panda 4.2 last weekend, says Barry Swartz of search Engine Land.
The Panda Algorithm Update is site wide so any effect on your website will be on a page by page basis. Add to this that the word on the street is that this algorithm update will take many months to complete, it could be a long time before any impact becomes evident and this could slowly creep across your website over a period time.
Google is staying true to form in that little is being said about the structure of this update; other than what is reported above. What we do know is that it is an update that will take many months to complete, so it will be difficult to assess what changes have been made within the algorithm and which type of website is affected. We will therefore be monitoring this for the next few months and reporting each piece of information we find.
There have been many Panda updates since its first launch in Feb 2011. Last year there were two updates.
May 20, 2014
Version 4.0
Sept 2014
Version 4.1
Google Panda is designed to focus on the quality of website content. Over time this update has penalised websites that have few pages, known as thin websites, and those that have a large amount of advertising on them. There have been many changes and tweaks to this algorithm over the years, other factors were introduced such as how the content is written and how relevant is it to the searchers requirement.
It is rumoured on Webmaster Forums that this latest update will only have a small impact. But as usual there will be some websites that drop a significant amount of ranking places and those that gain a significant amount.
All will become clear over the coming months, and we will report on all our findings.