Google Panda Update 23 Update


Google has confirmed rumors of a Google update announced on Twitter that they pushed out a Panda data refresh yesterday impacting about 1.3% of English queries.

This would make for the 23rd Panda update since the first Panda algorithm was introduced on February 24, 2011. Since then we had 22 updates both to the algorithm and also to the index or data refreshes came this year.

The latest impacted 1.3% of the queries, whereas version 22 impacted only 0.8% of English queries in Google.

We did see signs of a major update a week ago but Google told us there was no such update. Then again, I reported early signs of another update at the Search Engine Roundtable and Google confirmed it on Twitter.

Honestly, I am surprised they released a data refresh right before Christmas. Last year Google promised they would not update the Panda algorithm or do data refreshes until after the holidays – this year, I guess they decided not to wait.