| PENGUIN | PANDA |
| When was it introduced? | |
| April 2012 | February 2011 |
| How broad was the impact? | |
| 3.1% of English language queries | 12% of English language queries |
| Target | |
| Unnatural links, link exchanges, paid link exchanges, and article directories. | Low quality content, content scraping, content farms. |
| Did it achieve the desired effect? | |
| Sure, Google holds most of the cards in the SEO game and they generally get whatever they want. | Sure, Google holds most of the cards in the SEO game and they generally get whatever they want. |
| What was that desired effect again? I was so busy rebuilding page rankings that I forgot. | |
| To improve user experience by increasing the value of organic shares, particularly those stemming from social networks. Penguin achieved this by radically reducing the value of backlinks that come from paid, unnatural link networks and article directories. | To improve user experience by punishing sites that offered low quality, irrelevant content. It especially focused on content farms like Demand Studios that were producing thousands of low quality articles a day that offered little in the way of end-user value. |
| How often is it updated? | |
| Every six weeks or so. | Every six weeks, give or take. |
| How often do webmasters think that it’s being updated? | |
| Every time their page rankings drop. | They don’t think about Panda so much anymore, unless their page rankings drop. |
| Where did the name come from? | |
| According to Danny Sullivan, Penguin was originally called the, “Webspam Algorithm Update,” but Google didn’t want the Internet masses creating their own nickname, so they belatedly added the Penguin moniker. | This one is sometime known as the “Farmer Update” because it targeted high volume content farms. Eventually, the name of Google engineer, Navneet Panda was used to describe this now legendary update. |
| What’s the best way of bouncing back from this update? | |
| Focus on building organic link networks through Google approved, white hat SEO techniques like guest blogging. Also, get rid of all those spammy backlinks…by hand if necessary. | Focus on creating high quality, original, relevant content. Quit scraping/stealing content from other sites and just put up actual articles that people will want to read. |
