Zineb Ait Bahajji, Gary Illyes, and John Mueller of Google confirmed on Twitter that what webmasters were seeing over the weekend was not the expected Penguin update, but rather a core ranking algorithm update.
On Friday, early signs of an update were noticed, and over the weekend it was referred to as a “massive update.” Google confirmed on Twitter that it was indeed a core ranking algorithm update.
Google rarely confirms core algorithm updates, although they did confirm one in May 2015. Thus, it was significant for Google to acknowledge that the observed update was related to the core update.
Webmasters are still awaiting the Penguin update, which was delayed and expected to roll out this month. There was a lot of confusion among SEOs and webmasters who thought this update was related to Penguin.
However, the signs did not point to Penguin but seemed more related to core search or Panda. Now it is clarified that it was a core search update, potentially including Panda, which is now integrated into the core search algorithm.
