Google’s latest version of it’s Panda algorithm has recently been released into the wild and Matt Cutts has suggested it’s likely to affect 7.5% of search queries (a substantial amount).
Matt Cutts has suggested that this update paves the way for “gentler” updates which is great but doesn’t help any sites hit right now.
Sean Malseed over at Seerinteractive has been monitoring the effects of Panda 4 and he claims that Press releases have been slammed by Panda.
This does tie in with Google’s continued war against spam, especially considering the spammy nature that has infested the press release world for quite some time. Press releases have long been a measure of getting links and going after this type of low quality articles shuts off another get links quick scheme.
Only time will tell if this new improved Panda does actually result in “softer” updates but at 7.5% of searches, Panda 4 is about as soft as titanium.