Brace yourselves. Brace yourselves for Panda Version 2.2. Google has been unsurprisingly hush-hush about what this algorithm change entails; no-one knows who or what will be at the receiving end of Google’s wrath this time.
According to Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land, Google has confirmed that an update to the Panda filter has already taken place. Rumours started sometime last week when people were experiencing a drop in traffic, and now Google has officially confirmed the Panda’s awaited arrival.
So it seems that Google has been a little bit sneaky, quietly launching version 2.2, but what exactly do we know about the latest update?
What Can You Expect from Panda 2.2?
We’d love to say, “Be prepared.” But there’s only so much you can do when Google is being so secretive about Panda’s potential hit list includes. But we can thank the blogosphere for some clues.....
Scraper sites
The word on the grapevine is that the 2.2 update will target a common complaint – scraper sites. Many SEOs and webmasters will be able to tell you that the problem with scraper sites is an ongoing one, with these websites out-ranking the original publishers.
Scrapers sites scrape websites which publish their own content and will syndicate these, with the possibility of making money from Google AdSense when they outrank the content originators. There’s been much talk about possible improved scraper detection for a long time, but it seems that Matt Cutts has pretty much confirmed it for us now.
“A change has been approved that should help with that issue.” – Matt Cutts, Google.
And as always, he made it clear that Google will always continue to tweak the Panda algorithm to deal with issues brought to light buy webmasters and SEOs.
There has been no confirmed date of the exact Panda 2.2 rollout, but as suspected by Search Engine Land ‘s Barry Schwartz, the prologue was around June 16th. We could be in the eye of the storm as we speak.
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