Can anyone comment on how Google is responding to design / quality changes between updates?

DS: What’s going on with Panda. You said you’d stop confirming them. How many updates have there been since then.

MC: We had one about a month-and-a-half-ago. We haven’t updated it since then because we’re looking at pulling in a new signal that might help pull some people out of the gray zone.

Gives some background on Panda updates: Panda update 1 was really large. As you do more, the updates get smaller and get into a steady state where you bake the data into the index. In an average month, you might expect that we’re rolling out new Panda data about 10 days — about one-third of the month Panda is happening.

@Reseller - I thought I'd add this as well to your OP. Not sure what this means in terms of details, but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who knows of someone they think is in the "gray" zone.

we’re looking at pulling in a new signal that might help pull some people out of the gray zone.

That is a significant remark. So, could we assume the focus of current panda iterations are on helping websites considered to be collateral damages? I would have expected someone to ask this question there.

@Whitey

Thanks for additional info.

@indyank

might help pull some people out of the gray zone.

I understand it as efforts to reduce collateral damages.

That could account for my April 30 pounding as he mentioned "about a month and a half ago."

Originally affected by Panda I in February 2011

Looks like I'm not in the grey zone at all.

@Lostone, so you mean you are complete on the darksite in gs eyes?

I have the feeling that i am there, too. Since 5 days it goes down, down, down, never seen this bad times before!
So you could only believe half of what Cutts is saying. In februar he announced panda is integrated in main algo. Now he says it runs once a month? So its not in the main algo.
-> Pulling a signal to help poeple come out of the grey. Cutts I will help you: retire panda and penguin! Thats the singla you are looking for.

Martin:

Yea, real dark or so it seems, but I have recently hired some folks that have been known to pull Panda sites from the abyss. It reached a point I could be saying in the not too distant future.."why didn't I at least try."

Not cheap by any means and no promises, but they have answered some questions others had no clue in; technical/structure. I've also seen some startling patterns of pages that do not rank and keyword phrases that I've had real problems with since Panda I.

If these changes do help I don't expect to see them for a few months. I've been patient this long and fortunately saved for this rainy day period.

Lostone, my niche as been pulled upside down. Stupid and totaly unrelated blogs are on page #1 since last panda run.
But there is a pattern:
#1: allways amazon
#2: big brand
#3: ebay
#4 - #30 (!): unrelated silly blog pages, niche explanations only for 1 out of 1.0000.000 poeple.

@Martin Ice Web

So you could only believe half of what Cutts is saying. In februar he announced panda is integrated in main algo. Now he says it runs once a month? So its not in the main algo.

I don't recall Matt Cutts or a Google spokesperson mentioning that Panda updates would be integrated in main algo.

I understand it as Panda updates would be incorporated in the indexing process and would be deployed gradually.

I think Barry Schwartz wasn't precise when he posted on 13th March 2013

Google: Panda To Be Integrated Into The Search Algorithm (Panda Everflux)
[searchengineland.com...]

Because in the partial transcript of Matt Cutts audio, Matt didn't mention that Panda would be integrated into the search algorithm.

Here is a partial transcript of the audio clip with Matt Cutts which was refer to in the said article:

Rather than having some huge change that happens on a given day. You are more likely in the future to see Panda deployed gradually as we rebuild the index. So you are less likely to see these large scale sorts of changes.

Furthermore, Barry posted on 15th March 2013:

We were told from a Google spokesperson.

"I don't expect us to tweet about or confirm current or future Panda updates because they'll be incorporated into our indexing process and thus be more gradual."
[searchengineland.com...]

I hope this helps.

Real estate niche was hit today
top 4 .com all over are

realtor
trulia
zillow
homes

Most realtors where moved to the second page. Time to switch to another Bing.

Searching for "widget blog" brings back 6 of the 10 results from blogspot and one of them is Spanish not overly helpful.