Google Panda 3.2 Update Confirmed

Google has confirmed reports of a Panda update with us. Thye company told us they have done a data refresh of the Google Panda algorithm about a week ago, and added that there were no additional signals or algorithm changes. This was only a data refresh.

I saw reports over the past week or so of webmasters commenting about their rankings. Most were complaining that they lost rankings, but some said sites that were originally hit by Panda regained their traffic levels pre-Panda. This would explain the data refresh, where Google ran the algorithm and updated the sites that should or should not have been touched by Panda.

Google Panda 3.2

Google said this happened about a week or so, so I would place this Google Panda 3.2 update as happening on January 18, 2012.

Why 3.2 and not 2.x? Well, I spoke with a Googler back in late November, they expressed that one of the 2.x updates we labeled as a “minor” update, should have likely been named as a major update and thus labelled a 3.0 update. I personally believe that was an October Panda update, that we did not cover here, but I do not have confirmation on that. In fact, Google does not number their updates, so it is hard to nail down.

The 3.1 update was likely the the minor update from November and now this being a basic “data refresh,” we’d label this as a minor update as well, and call this the 3.2 update.

There was a long gap between this update and the update from November because Google promised us no Panda updates during holidays.

Google Panda 2.5 Hits? Nope!

There are some rumors shuffling around the SEO industry that there is a new Google Panda update taking place right now.

Update: Google said there is no update taking place right now.

Tedster started a thread at Webmaster World asking, “I’m hearing some reports of site-wide ranking demotions over the weekend that have a similar pattern to what we saw with Panda. That is, lots of keywords affected, but the demotions are not at all uniform the way we often see in a site-wide penalty.”

One full time member confirmed some major changes, saying:

Sustained dip on sites with a local relevance, beginning on the 17th, maintained through today.Sustained 40-50% increase on niche-info type sites, started on the 13th, maintained through today. (on sites I watch, this generic site action/reaction is typical within 4-10 days after a large googlebot crawl)

Plus, in ongoing Google Webmaster Help thread we have new reports of new sites being hit by Panda.

We do have some recoveries being reported but at the same time, some new sites were hit.

The big question is, can I get Google to confirm or deny this and if so, did you guys notice a new Panda update?

For more on Panda, see our Panda category and here are some of the major updates to Panda:

• Panda 2.4 in August
• Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd.
• Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
• Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
• Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
• Panda 1.0 on February 24th

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Google told, “There was no update in the past couple days. The most recent update was in August, when we rolled out the algorithm change internationally to most languages.”