Google Penguin the New Algorithm
Just over a week ago now Google rolled out a new algorithm which many people will not be aware of or maybe you will be if you have been one of the websites affected. There are a number of items which make this update extremely special to Search Engine Optimisation and very different to any other updates.
What is so special and different about this new algorithm is that this one has not focused upon the quality of search results but rather it has placed focus upon penalising and removing any value from websites which appear to have manipulating link profiles and are in effect violating Google Guidelines.
Currently if you look at a set of search results then the number one result could be the best result quality wise however, if it is manipulating the search results then Google is not going to keep it at number one. Instead through the Penguin algorithm they will downgrade this and place it further down the results because of that particular sites engagement in bad link practices, manipulation of the links and for things like purchasing links.
If you are hit by Google Penguin then there are two things which can happen:
- Penalty – If Google are 99.9% sure that it is you and your site which is engaging in the bank link practices then you will receive a penalty.
- Notification – If Google are not sure that it is you specifically but rather you’re a great site and you have just been ranking on some shoddy links from devalued websites which Google are now not going to count or shouldn’t have counted then you will receive notification and you will need to get better quality links.
This new Google Algorithm is proving that Google is not tolerating black hat SEO practices and they are prepared to make the results temporarily worse in order to ensure that people and SEO experts now follow the rules and guidelines set out. For quite some time now we have not had an update like this and so this is the first time which Google has released a new Algorithm not focused on quality.
Some of the worst spam has been affected which is good and means that some total junk has now been eradicated and sites with obvious participation in link networks have been penalised too which is fair.
It is people within the marketing and services industries which have been hit the worst inclusive of SEO providers, web design companies and marketing and advertising services. Businesses which have been using items such as “internet marketing Blackburn” are being penalised.
These are the types of results being hit heavy and this is probably because people who operate within the field of marketing services have correlation with people who are getting the kind of link spam to their websites which Google hit hard they are connected to. We have already seen items such as penalization for links from client pages, keywords into the footer even in light form, items which in effect is not true spam but it’s a light manipulative action.
As mentioned this Penguin Algorithm will focus on manipulative link profiles, links which are pointing to your site and website pages but also where you link to and what link schemes, if any that you are involved within.
The problem comes because there have been a number of updates occurring at the same time:
- Panda
- Hacked Domains Bug
- 53 Outlined Changes by Google Search Quality
All of the above has caused the search results to be quite bouncy! It is hard to see which update or algorithm you have been affected by and whether you have been hit by Google Penguin specifically. You need to go through and check them all thoroughly to see which guidelines you break.
Google Penguin is not confirmed as yet to have a rolling update like say Google Panda. What is quite safe to say is that it could be here for a while because Google have set up the reconsideration request form on their website for people who feel they have been wrongly hit and had pretty clean links and say were not participating in link schemes.
Normally Google analysis is to improve the search results quality but this Algorithm hasn’t been designed to do this. Rather it has been designed to get people to simply follow Google guidelines and to remove the value from manipulative link schemes. They simply want people to follow white hat practices but there is a twist!
Many have already commented on sites which look horrendous and are ranking for items like “viagra”. In theory these are simply websites which have expired or are empty and parked domains but mostly they could be websites where spammers will test their link building “stuff” on and then they are not caught by Google Penguin.
Sometimes these sites are not caught because everything link building wise is fresh and probably links have only been built 3 days ago and so 3rd party sites like SEOmoz haven’t caught up. In addition to this these sites block crawlers or redirect crawlers so we cannot see their link profiles.
We do not advocate or want anyone to get the idea that by link spamming and black hat practices in the worst form will get them to rank. The real message is that Google is still caring and is willing to make sacrifices in order to get people, web masters SEO experts to participate in white hat practices they take aggressive action against manipulative link building.
Go through the normal practices what you would do when you are hit with a “you have been engaging in manipulative link building emails” to remove all the links and get back a reconsideration request back to Google, show good faith and disclose in full what you have been doing and how you have corrected this.
They haven’t caught everything yet but they will – will you be caught out?