What is your hypothesis why Panda/Penguin recoveries happen over months after an algorithm update rather than over night?
-
We have experienced many scenarios were ranking recoveries from clear Panda and Penguin penalties on our sites don't necessarily happen with the launch of a Panda/Penguin update but instead trickle back in over weeks and months after a confirmed algo update. A good example is shown in the image which shows a panda recovery for a high volume keyword. What is your theory why these ranking recoveries happen over weeks vs instantly?
-
Thank you for your input, your hypothesis that the initial increase to page 2 or 3 allowed the site to get traffic and gain traction through improved user engagement is an interesting one; however the traffic to those sites has been so minimal with the non top 10 rankings that I don't think it can be a key contributor.
I continue to wonder why these recoveries happen so gradually; I also noticed that the higher the keyword volume for a key word the slower the recovery.
-
Interesting graphic. It looks like that keyword plummeted in May of 2014. I'm assuming it must have been around May 20 when Panda updated? And then it made a comeback starting in the fall of 2015.
There were some potential Panda "tremors" in late 2015. (https://www.mariehaynes.com/algo-changes-and-more/). As Google doesn't announce each time they adjust Panda any more, we can often have Panda movement on days that aren't officially in the Moz list of Panda updates and refreshes. For example, on October 14/15, 2015 there were a lot of sites that were previously hit with Panda that saw some sort of improvement on that day.
I think it's quite possible that this is what happened for your site. It improved to page 2 or 3 or so and then, now that it had some kind of visibility had the chance to climb back to page 1.
The last official Panda update that Google announced started in July of 2015 but Google said it would be slow rolling and take several months to fully roll out. We still don't know whether that iteration is still slowly rolling along now.
Google did confirm recently that Panda is not yet baked into the algorithm but that it is considered a core part of the algorithm. It still does need to be manually refreshed however. So, it is my guess that in October of 2015 they manually refreshed or updated some portion of Panda and your site started to see improvement at that point.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Meta robots at every page rather than using robots.txt for blocking crawlers? How they'll get indexed if we block crawlers?
Hi all, The suggestion to use meta robots tag rather than robots.txt file is to make sure the pages do not get indexed if their hyperlinks are available anywhere on the internet. I don't understand how the pages will be indexed if the entire site is blocked? Even though there are page links are available, will Google really index those pages? One of our site got blocked from robots file but internal links are available on internet for years which are not been indexed. So technically robots.txt file is quite enough right? Please clarify and guide me if I'm wrong. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Google Algorithm change this month - theories ?
Hi Moz fans! If you've not had the chance to check out moz cast go check it out it seems Google has been busy and so much so it broke Moz cast. There has been some discussion on seo round table about the changes and something seems to be going on. I wanted to find out how you guys are all finding it have you had a change in rankings? Any theories on what you think Google is up to? Personally I've seen rather a few of my sites go up in the rankings last week or so. As always look forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings on it Moz.
Algorithm Updates | | GPainter3 -
Anyone seeing big drops in Bing this month?
Seems like our Google rankings are improving on most sites, but BING took a big hit this month for many of the sites we working on. I have never seen them drop like this before. Anyone else seeing the same thing? I am wondering if it is because we are building a lot of brand links vs. keyword links and Bing still wants to see the keyword links. What have you seen?
Algorithm Updates | | netviper0 -
Google Algorithm Update .. Author-rank finally kicking in ?
These few days I've been seeing great movement of my sites growing by 70-100% in traffic spikes. Some how I think this has something to do with AuthorRank maybe kicking in now as more of a factor in rankings? Anyone have an idea whats going on ?
Algorithm Updates | | NikolasNikolaou0 -
Do you Feel Street View for inside a local business is a ranking factor for the local algorithm?
I'm working in a market where the Google Trusted photographer is rolling out. The question came up if providing this data would boost your rankings in the local map pack. I've been asking a few fellow SEO peeps but I thought I would throw it out here for your opinion.
Algorithm Updates | | BCutrer0 -
Is This Keyword Stuffing/Spamming?
We are a custom patch company--we make patches for many different types of clients. I have a gallery of patches for almost every kind of client, and they all have their own pages. If I put navigation on the home page such as what I show below, will Google consider that to be too much? Boy Scout Patches | Motorcycle Patches | Fire Patches | Police Patches | Military Patches | Sports Patches | Business and Organization Patches | Paintball Patches | Scooter Patches | In Memory Patches They would all be links to different pages, and there would be literally 50-60 more! Would it be better to remove the word patches from all of the links? And then another question comes up: too many on-page links?
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Google's reaction to site updates
Hi, Is it safe to assume as soon as Google indexes updates I've made to my site that any ranking changes the updates effected will happen at that same time, or is there ever a lag time before these changes ( if any ) take effect?
Algorithm Updates | | minutiae0