Google says Search Engine Land that Panda refresh began this weekend, and many of you may not have noticed because this rollout is happening incredibly slowly. Google also said that the update can take two months to fully roll out because it will slowly impact your site.
Google’s Panda algorithm is designed to prevent sites with poor-quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. This is still a site-wide algorithm. So immediately you cannot see a change in some of your web pages.
The previous Panda refresh was on September 25, 2014 and labeled Panda 4.1. The update was made on almost 10 months ago. Google said that the previous was the 28th update, but I would coin this 29th or 30th update, because Google saw small fluctuations in October 2014.
The rollout means anyone who was penalized by Panda in the last update has a chance to rise if they made the appropriate changes. If your site were hit by previous Panda update, you unfortunately won’t notice the full impact immediately but you should see changes in your organic rankings gradually over time.
Google told us that Panda 4.2 affects different languages to different degrees. For example, 2-3% of English language queries that are affected to a degree that a regular user might notice.
Here are the previous confirmed Panda updates,
Panda Update 1 — AKA Panda 1.0 — Feb. 24, 2011
11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only
Panda Update 2 — AKA Panda 2.0 — April 11, 2011
2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally
Panda Update 3 — May 10, 2011
Did not make any change; confirmed, not announced
Panda Update 4 — June 16, 2011
Did not make any change; confirmed, not announced
Panda Update 5 — July 23, 2011
Did not make any change; 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
Did not make any change; confirmed, not announced
Panda Update 8 — AKA Panda 3.0 — Oct. 19, 2011
2% of queries; belatedly confirmed
Panda Update 9 — Nov. 18, 2011
Less than 1% of queries; announced
Panda Update 10 — Jan. 18, 2012
Did not make any change; confirmed, not announced
Panda Update 11 — Feb. 27, 2012
Did not make any change; announced
Panda Update 12 — March 23, 2012
1.6% of queries impacted; announced
Panda Update 13 — April 19, 2012
Did not make any change; belatedly revealed
Panda Update 14 — April 27, 2012
Did not make any change; confirmed; first update within days of another
Panda Update 15 — June 9, 2012
1% of queries; belatedly announced
Panda Update 16 — June 25, 2012
1% of queries; announced
Panda Update 17 — July 24, 2012
1% of queries; announced
Panda Update 18 — Aug. 20, 2012
1% of queries; belatedly announced
Panda Update 19 — Sept. 18, 2012
Less than 0.7% of queries; announced
Panda Update 20 — Sept. 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
Panda Update 25 — March 15, 2013
Confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened
Panda Update 26 — July 18, 2013
Confirmed, announced
Panda Update 27 — AKA Panda 4.0 — May 20, 2014
7.5% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced
Panda Update 28 — AKA Panda 4.1 — Sept. 25, 2014
3-5% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced
Panda Update 30 — AKA Panda 4.2 — July 18, 2015
2-3% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced
