Google has confirmed that Panda is now a part of its core ranking algorithm. Panda has not been updated; Google was careful to specify that any recent updates to its core algorithm were not Panda or Penguin related. Rather, Panda in its current form has been integrated as part of the algorithm's core functionality.

Panda targets page quality. The initial Panda release in 2011 aimed to lower the rankings of pages that contained weak or “thin” content. On a domain...