Website owners across the world were reporting that they had seen dramatic movements within the search engines over the weekend, some seeing sites plummet deep into the darkest corners of the search ranking spectrum and with such big changes, people were laying claim to the fact that they thought that there had been a Google Panda update but we now know that that isn’t the case.

According to the guys over at SERoundtable, they have reached out to Google in the hope to be able to gain confirmation that Panda #22 had been rolled out but it seems that the shake-up has nothing to do with the Google Panda algorithm update.

Google were once again generic with their response, telling SERoundtable.com that the update was not Panda induced but they were only willing to reveal the same, not so useful, message of:

We make over 500 improvements to Google Search each year so we can surface high-quality information for our users.

Although an update has been seen to have happened, Google have ruled out the thoughts that the Panda algorithm was to blame, but they did give away a small piece of information that could be very interesting if you have already been affected by Panda, hinting that Panda #22 is set to be rolled into action in the next 7 to 10 days.

So with Google Panda ruled out of contention for the cause of so many headaches over the weekend, what could have possibly caused to huge slump in rankings for website owners?

As usual, Google are not about to show their hand and they are very keen to keep this information close to their chest in a bid to prevent webmasters trying to counter balance the change, but we have already reported an increase in search engine visibility for brands.

While conducting a look into what the search engine results were showing for a number of brands, both globally and locally known, it seems that there has been a vast amount of power shift when it comes to brand terms, seemingly offering better brand protection for companies.

We are still determined to be able to really put a pin in what this update has targeted, but with the search engine results constantly shifting and showing some very questionable sites on some particular keyword terms, we are still investigating what potential aims the update had other than to empower brands.

Think that you know what Google were trying to achieve? Let us know your thoughts and findings!