Google confirmed an algorithm update after web owners and webmasters noticed ranking changes on their websites.
At first, some were suspecting the changes were caused by an update to the Penguin algorithm, while some thought the update was aimed to decrease search rankings to those that violate Google's guidelines.
Changes in SEO and fluctuation of rank for websites were to be seen in early 2016 since the Penguin update was expected to arrive. After some early Penguin speculations, on January 12th, it was then concluded that Penguin wasn't causing the changes.
Zineb Ait Bahajji, Gary Illyes and John Mueller of Google have confirmed on Twitter that what webmasters were seeing over the weekend was not the Penguin update people were expecting, but rather a core ranking algorithm update.
The change was considered a "big thing" for Google because the company rarely confirms any of its core algorithm updates.
The last update confirmation was back in May 2015, but it is still rare that Google confirm these. It's considered a big thing for Google because it's going on the record to update webmasters about its core update.
Early Confusions
When changes happen quietly over the weekend, many search engine optimizers and webmasters were confused by the update because according to Google, the Penguin update was to be delayed. Furthermore, the signs didn't point to Penguin.
So people concluded that it was either Panda or an update to Google's core search. But since Panda is now baked into Google's core search algorithm, what Google did was is to lower the rank of low-quality websites and those with thin contents.
This has led to more confusion, as people thought that this would refresh Panda penalties.
"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," explained Google about the Panda.
Gary Illyes from Google confirmed the authenticity of this statement. But he also responded to the confusion, saying that "The recent ranking fluctuations you noticed have absolutely nothing to do with Panda or other animals".
Following this statement, he said that Panda updates are a little bit faster, a little bit more regular.
The last Panda was version 4.2, launched around July 18, 2015. It was meant to roll out slowly for a really long time. It was so slow people didn't believe it exists.