When Google rolled out Panda 4.2 they told me this will roll out over months and months, a very slow roll out. It was just technically how this roll out was happening they told me.
John Mueller in a Google+ Hangout added more things on record about why it is rolling out slowly. Well, why is still not answered but he did add some more advice around the slow roll out.
In summary he said:
- The roll out is similar to previous roll outs
- This one is slower because of "technical reasons"
- John actually said there is "an internal issue" for the technical reason but I am not sure he actually meant that.
- This is not rolling out slowly to confuse webmasters
He mentioned it in three different points in the hangout, let's go through each:
At the 25:30 mark the question was:
Hi John my question is Panda related. First of all why you guys decided this update to roll out so slowly. And second could you please tell us how is this update different then the other updates. Is it targeting more then just content?
John answered:
This is actually, pretty much a similar update to before. For technical reasons we are rolling it out a bit slower. It is not that we are trying to confuse people with this. It is really just for technical reasons.
At the 37:14 mark the question asked was:
Panda has run many times over the past few years. This P. run has been said to be a "crawl" lasting several months... Does that mean it's moving slowly for a one pass over the internet? Does Panda effect a sites rank immediately?
John answered:
So, it is not that we are crawling slowly. We are crawling and indexing normal, and we are using that content as well to recognize higher quality and lower quality sites. But we are rolling out this information in a little bit more slower way. Mostly for technical reasons.
And then later on, at 39:50 mark John added:
It is not like we are making this process slower by design, it is really an internal issue on our side.
Take what you want from these clarification points. It still doesn't answer all the questions webmasters and SEOs have on the slow Panda 4.2 roll out.
Forum discussion at Google+.
