Back in February of 2011, one of Google’s most significant spam-fighting algorithms, Google Panda, was officially launched. But now, it has become part of Google’s core raking algorithm, although it’s not clear when this happened.
A Panda guide was posted by Jennifer Slegg that was vetted by the PR team at Google, and there is a part of statement that says Panda is offically a part of Google’s core ranking algorithm. Here’s the statement:
Panda is an algorithm that’s applied to sites overall and has become one of our core ranking signals. It measures the quality of a site, which you can read more about in our guidelines. Panda allows Google to take quality into account and adjust ranking accordingly.
The authenticity of this statement was then confirmed by Google’s Gary Illyes.
This is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one for Panda. From now on, we will, more than likely, ever hear about another update for Panda again. But then again, Panda will now enhance the ore algorithm with its spam fighting code.
The last Panda update confirmed was Panda 4.2, which was expected to roll out over a number of months.
So what does this mean? Will the core ranking algorithm update in real time? Maybe not, as a new core ranking algorithm update just ran this past weekend. That update seemed to include some Panda signals in it.
So when did Google finally integrate Panda in to the core algorithm? What will this mean for the future? We’ll have to wait and see.