No difference noticed yet for me, but it's early days and a full update can take a few weeks to take effect.
Oh look, another Google algorithm update that likely leaves my sites exactly where they are, or even better, lets me rank higher as the SEO scam artists get slapped down. I really enjoy watching the SEO-tards run around like chickens with their heads cut off every time there's an update, usually followed by the spate of ad hominem attacks against Matt Cutts. Gee, people who think SEO needs 'specialists' and 'tricks' to be turned into a cottage industry getting upset with and attacking the guy who's job it is to make it so abuse gets slapped down -- who saw that coming? Again, SEO is a small but important part of building a website that does NOT warrant the existence of people or companies where that's "all they do". SEO is simple: 1) Well written content of value using terms relevant to the topic 2) Marked up semantically with a logical document structure 3) organically back-linked to on relevant news/forums/social sites either by yourself, or people who actually like and want to share your content. PERIOD, DONE, END OF STORY!!! Anything else is card stacking glittering generalities BULLSHIT used by scam artists to prey upon the ignorance of others. Google has once again slapped down people using sleazy tricks to polish their turds.... OH NOES, NOT THAT! If this update impacted you in a negative fashion, take a good hard look in the mirror; you either are a scam artist, or have been duped by one.
Except... at the end it's the little guy that will suffer Mr. deathshadow. If the big G just slapped the SEO scam artists or those who used disingenuous SEO techniques - fine. They are slapping a ton of sites that they have deemed to be low quality. That's what I personally have been agitated by. Other than that I am all for it.
From our perspective this has been a good update, with clients seeing an increase for their original content. This seems to be a reinforcement of the original Panda, but going further to support unique copy. My personal sites are up, and so are all the sites we've worked with consistently over the last year.
If the websites indeed are of low quality, then they should be demoted in the rankings to a place below sites of higher quality.
They have deemed them to be low quality. Who is the judge to say: Oh, this one is low quality and this one is not? What may seem like low quality (and it's such a misused term anyway) to you may not be to another. For instance (and I am not picking on drudgereport in any malicious way here), to me: http://www.drudgereport.com/ is a website that I'd deem low quality. No content whatsoever. Yet, I don't think it will ever be demoted (due to its popularity). Yet, there are thousands of quality websites out there that have lost their rankings for no apparent reason. At the end, it's the little guy, who is already barely hanging on, that will suffer.
Google's current trend since 2012 is penalizing small sites and promoting already big sites, despite the purported intent of 'quality'. 2 years ago when you did a very rare search regarding a very peculiar SQL query for a specific situation, a page from a 3 page blog which a datacenter engineer put on internet years ago would come up in the search result at the top, and it would be the exact answer you were looking for. Now, all you get is stack overflow with semi-relevant q/as. Its the same in every other kind of search - already big comes up and fills the spot. It doesnt matter whether your article is THE answer to a very specific question. You must either be already big, or get linked by sites that are already big. which is basically the same. Today you may get lucky with 1-2 pages with one specific search query, and think that the system is working. Tomorrow with another 'quality' update, those pages will also get affected. Its best to regard google traffic as totally nonexistent, and make all business plans accordingly - if you are setting up a long term business or website. Then you would be on solid ground, and what traffic comes from google would be extra.
Updated: The last 10 days of Google organic traffic is up 47% compared to the final 15 days pre-Panda 4.0. The second week post-Panda 4.0 seems to be bringing me more Google organic traffic than the first week Post-Panda 4.0.
I Can't able to figure out but I have lost some ranking ... but am getting same traffic as earlier after Panda 4..( Not much affected but I think affected little bit).
I think they are still tweaking with the whole thing. Our organic traffic is all over the place. Up and down, up and down.
There has been a mixed result of the web properties that we track though it was biased more towards rankings going down.