Google Introduces Pandas to Latin America

Brazilian Webmasters are bracing for impact as the rumor spreads that Google may be targeting their search results with the Panda Technologytm next. I may be partly responsible for that bracing because I reported a rumored Tweet that has been passed around. Let me say in no uncertain terms that I do not know where Panda will be rolled out next. My belief is that since all English search results have now been affected that it follows a non-English rollout will signal the release of Panda 3.0.

There is no official Google Blog for the Portuguese Web [CORRECTION: There IS a Google Brasil Blog] (Brazil, Portugal, and a few other countries use Portuguese as their primary languages). The source of the Portuguese language rumor appears to be a Tweet from Pedro Dias, a Search Quality Analyst at Google.

All he said in that Tweet (according to Google Translate) is that Panda is not yet active in Portuguese or any other non-English language. So have Portuguese Webmasters who circulated this Tweet reacted too quickly?

One does not normally think of Brazil or Portugal when talking about “content farms” (which Panda does not seem to have been concerned with — but try explaining that to the news media). Still, it might make logistical sense to focus on a widespread but not most widely used language. There are several major international languages that are used on the Web: English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Arabic. Other languages are used on a smaller scale between multiple countries. In terms of numbers of Websites, however, I think these may be the most widely used languages.

There could be a number of factors that Google uses to determine which languages to target. They may roll Panda out to multiple languages at one time. But maybe they are looking at things like market share, number of Google users in the language, number of Websites, and how many employees they have who would be able to work on the Panda rollout.

Regardless of how good the algorithm is, according to former Google Search Quality Team member Edmond Lau, Amit Singhal doesn’t believe in just turning algorithms loose on the Web. Amit, according to Mr. Lau, prefers a strong measure of human oversight. Perhaps Amit is a true Terminator fan who will never trust the Machines to operate without supervision. Maybe he just has the good sense not to let a SkyNet evolve on his watch.

So despite everything we have been told so far, we can say with a high degree of certainty that Panda has not simply run amok on the English Web. People at Google are working on Panda in some capacity. Googler Wysz even told Webmasters that Google engineers are very interested in hearing feedback on the algorithm, apparently so they can figure out if it needs any Tweaking.

To date, we know of two tweaks: Panda 2.0 adjusted a further 2% of US searches and Panda 2.1 adjusted another (undisclosed) percentage of US (and possibly international English) searches.

I think there is sufficient evidence to argue that Googlers have to assemble the troops and conduct a large-scale audit of preliminary Panda-derived classifications before Amit Singhal and his advisors are ready to roll out the next update. But where will it land?

I don’t know, but a curious thing happened on the Spanish Web this week. Google started talking about the Panda update en Espanol. So maybe the next rollout will be targeted at Spanish language sites — most of which (I believe) are created in Latin America.

The article to which I link appears to be a translation of Amit Singhal’s May 6 Webmaster Central Blog article. I checked the Google France and China blogs and there are no such translations on those blogs [UPDATE: Nor is there such a translation on the Brasil blog]. Of course, maybe Google just doesn’t have time to translate every Panda-related blog post into every language Google blogs in — there have, after all, been so many Panda-related blog posts from Google. (That was sarcasm for those who are not sure.)

So, at the risk of starting more unverified rumors and causing panic among my numerous distant relatives in the south, I point to this rather interesting and curious communication from Google’s Search Quality Team.

Maybe the Panda will land in South America next. Maybe not. My money is on a Latin Language rollout but only because that seems to be where the discussion is aimed. It could be that Google is employing a classic Fencing technique called “Tactics of Mistake”, where they lead their opponents to guess wrongly about what Google is trying to do.

Conspiracy Theorists should have a field day with that suggestion.

In any event, talking about Panda in Spanish or Portuguese seemed more interesting to me than talking about it in English. So to my brother (and cousin) Webmasters in Latin America I say: Clean up your page clutter! Get rid of your duplicate content!