If earthquakes are one of the most destructive forces in the natural world, then the updates that Google introduces to their search rankings algorithm are their corollary in the internet world – and the ones that have been rolling out of late have definitely been felt.

Just recently Google rolled out the 21st iteration of the “Panda” update, and preliminary numbers are putting the total of sites online that have seen their rankings change at 1.1% for US sites, while that number is lower worldwide at 0.4%. And while that may not seem like a massive impact to you, remember that there are billions of sites, pages, and properties indexed in Google. Let’s just say for simplicities sake that there are a billion in the US alone – meaning there are 11,000,000 US businesses that have been hit.

Panda, your impact has certainly been felt.

Google’s main business goals are to serve the best and most relevant results to each and every single visitor that uses their search engine. And since there are billions of websites (with millions more being added to the collective web every single day) it would be impossible to handle the job on their own – the need to use complex algorithms to rank whether a site should raise or be dropped in the rankings – and every SEO company in the world is trying to find out what makes Google tick.

Each time SEO professionals “crack the code” of how to raise their rankings, Google needs to make changes that plug the holes, so to speak. This has caused a cat and mouse game with the highest stakes possible – there are literally billions and billions of dollars riding on whether or not one site or another can claim the top ranked site.

I spoke to our SEO team this morning and can report that most of our clients seem to have weathered the storm quite well of this latest update. Have you noticed any impact to your website’s ranking?