Google’s 2014 Algorithm Updates: Changing SEO In 2015

2015 has been an incredibly interesting year from a Google algorithm update standpoint. Although there weren’t many confirmed updates like previous years, it was still a relatively volatile year algo-wise. We had the mobile-friendly algorithm released in April of 2015, Phantom 2 confirmed in early May, and then Panda 4.2 in July. I explained what I have seen during the extended rollout of Panda 4.2. I ended up analyzing over seven weeks of Panda data, since P4.2 is going through an extended rollout. And yes, it’s still rolling out now. More about that soon. Overall, it had been very quiet leading up to that post. Sure, there were some sites that had seen impact and movement, but not like typical Panda updates. It was an underwhelming update to say the least.  It’s hard to say if what I’ve been seeing is Panda or a tweak to Google’s core ranking algorithm, but September has been an extremely volatile month algorithm-wise. Specifically, there was movement on 9/2 with some sites seeing large drops in Google organic traffic. And then there was significant movement on 9/16 where some sites surged in traffic, while others dropped heavily.

So I decided to ask Google’s Gary Illyes on Twitter. At first, Gary explained that Panda 4.2 was being manually pushed at various intervals. But that’s actually not correct. He misunderstood the tweet and didn’t mean that Panda was being pushed manually at various intervals. Instead, Gary explained that Panda 4.2 was manually pushed on 7/18/15 and then automatically rolls out over months. From what he said, there have been no refinements to Panda 4.2 since the initial rollout. That’s important to understand, since it can help us better understand what we are seeing now volatility-wise. And a big thank you to Barry Schwartz for questioning the original response. Without that, I think we would still think Panda 4.2 was being manually pushed.

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.