Okay Google, now you really got me confused… Just when I thought there’s some little bit of order in the zoo, you do things like that that perplex many site owners which their only sin was they tried to find the logical pattern within your search algorithm.
Alright, alright, let’s try to shed some light about what is going in this super-complex-ever-changing mechanism which site owners tries to break down so desperately. Over the last few hours, Google Tweeted that a new Panda data refresh has been pushed (update 3.8 for all you numerical people).
Heads up: we’re pushing a new Panda data refresh that noticeably affects only ~1% of queries worldwide. More context: goo.gl/HNvCt
— A Googler (@google) June 25, 2012
The reason that this Panda update is a bit odd is because the previous one occurred about two weeks ago, while it mostly happen every 4-6 weeks. Another data refresh so soon was definitely unexpected although it isn’t the first time Google breaks the traditional Panda pattern.
Back on April, Google pushed Panda update 3.6 just eight days after the prior update. But what was surprising about this specific update is that everybody in the SEO community anticipated a Penguin data refresh as the last one (Penguin 1.1) happened over a month ago.
It’s like waiting for a certain friend to arrive to the party but when you open the door after someone is knocking it’s (surprise, surprise!) your good ol’ uncle Panda… But I guess that Matt Cutts and his search buddies have their own reasons to make these changes and we can only speculate why.
Perhaps Google wants to roll out some new update and they wanted to refresh the Panda before that. Perhaps they want to calibrate the Panda time-frame. Perhaps Penguin data refresh works better when there’s a Panda refresh right before. Or perhaps someone simply click on the wrong animal refresh button…
Stay tuned, because there will probably be another update of some animal soon enough.