As any Disney fan knows, penguins are cute, fluffy creatures, but if you are a web publisher or SEO professional, you have probably come to hate penguins with a deep and abiding passion. Google has frequently updated its Penguin algorithm in the past, and it is essential that you are up to speed with this aspect of Google update history.
First launched in 2012, Google Penguin updates have gone through many changes over the years and are now part of Google’s core algorithm. For your SEO efforts to generate success, you must know what is the penguin update in SEO and how it can impact your website.
What is Google Penguin?
For those who aren’t familiar with previous Penguin updates, Penguin targets websites considered to have dubious backlinks that are in direct contravention of Google linking policies. It was designed to combat black-hat SEO practices, although somewhat inevitably, many ordinary websites were caught up in the crossfire.
In 2012, Penguin was introduced for the first time with the Google Penguin release, which it described as a webspam algorithm update to target link spam and underhand link building tactics. Before the Penguin update Google imposed, the search engine viewed link quantity as the main determiner for how highly to rank webpages, which meant that many low-quality sites ranked high up on the results pages.
This wasn’t the first time that Google tried to crack down on low-quality sites and content. It started this with the Panda algorithm and then introduced Penguin to tackle spammy links. The Penguin Google update aimed to make sure that natural and relevant authority links rewarded websites, and spammy links were penalised. Penguin was set up to only look at a website’s incoming links.
A Guide to Google Penguin Algorithm Update
Let’s take a look at the new Penguin updates Google has brought in since its introduction.
May 2013 – Google Penguin 2.0
The Penguin 2.0 Google brought out updated the technical side of the algorithm, which changed how it impacted search engine results. Overall, this update affected around 2.3% of English language search queries. It looked deeper than a website’s homepage and top category pages for link spam being directed to the website.
In October of the same year, Google refreshed the 2.0 update to increase how much of an in-depth look Penguin took into websites.
October 2014 – Google Penguin 3.0
Google Penguin 2014 issued the Penguin 3.0 update. It was a long time coming and was therefore highly anticipated at the time. Speculation was rife with SEO experts pondering what the latest penguin update would hold after Google confirmed that the Penguin algorithm filter had been updated.
When Google Penguin update 3.0 was introduced, we issued a guide on what website owners could expect. Here is what we said about it at the time:
What Can You Expect from Penguin 3.0?
One thing about Penguin is that if you are affected, you have to wait for the next major update to see whether the changes you have made have been effective. Since the last update, webmasters have been removing or disavowing spammy links. If your strategy has been effective, you should see a big jump in organic web traffic since Friday night.
However, if you have seen a fall in traffic, your strategy might not have worked, although you should bear in mind that a reduction in traffic and ranking may be as a result of links further along the network being discounted and, therefore, ‘link juice’ drying up. Be warned: if you only got around to disavowing spammy links in the last three weeks, you will not have gained anything in this update
Earlier Penguin updates saw re-runs of the algorithm a few weeks after the main update was rolled out, so you can expect something along those lines again this time. Google has also warned that the “next few Penguin updates will take longer.”
Many are already seeing significant changes in the level of organic traffic, which is a good sign that recovery work after the last major update has largely been successful. There are likely to be huge fluctuations over the next few days, but if your website has been hit by Penguin, the damage will become apparent fairly quickly.
How to Deal with Penguin 3.0
Google has described the new algorithm as “softer,” but the search engine giant does seem to be getting better at identifying bad links. Since it is very difficult to have bad links removed, the only surefire way to check your links is to download a link profile and manually audit each one. It is a painful process, but adding each dodgy link to a disavow file will help your site recover once the next update rolls out.
September 2016 – Google Penguin 4.0 update
The Google Penguin update 2016 saw was the Google Penguin update 4.0. This update targeted poor SEO practices like keyword stuffing and spam link building, which have the sole intention of increasing rankings.
This new Google Penguin filter was included in Google’s core algorithm, meaning it applies in routine crawling, indexing, and ranking regarding site changes in Google Penguin real time instead of waiting for periodic refreshes.
Other changes this new Google Penguin update included:
- Devaluing spam links – Instead of a Penguin 4.0 penalty, this update ignores and devalues spam and low quality links, which helps sites that have been hit with harsh penalties in the past.
- Page-specific – Previously, Google penalised entire sites for dodgy link building methods. If one page was found to be using spammy link building, the entire website would be negatively affected. Now, Google focuses on pages specifically.
The Penguin update 4.0 was the last Penguin update from Google. You might be wondering if Google’s penguin update is still relevant in 2022 – the answer to that is an astounding yes.
Google Penguin Penalty
When the Penguin Google algorithm was introduced, it penalised offending websites using spammy SEO techniques by lowering their rankings. The Google 3.0 penalty could only be reversed if you removed the spammy links by sending out requests for this to happen.
If this didn’t happen, site owners would have to contact Google to disregard links when crawling their websites, which became the last resort during a Google Penguin recovery plan. However, before the new Google Penguin 2016 saw, the Google Penguin algorithm ran periodically, which meant websites that had requested their links be disregarded were re-evaluated each time, resulting in a Penguin penalty.
How to Recover From Google Penguin Updates
Regarding Google Penguin recovery, the process was made easier when the Google Penguin 4.0 updates came along. It saw Penguin run in real-time and devalue spammy links instead of penalising them.
If you noticed a drop in your rankings after these updates, you could use a Google Penguin checker tool or Google algorithm checker to find a fix to Google penalty issues on your website. You can also conduct a backlink analysis and build new high-quality links that Google will not devalue or penalise.
How We Can Help
If you need help with your Google Penguin penalty recovery, you should enlist the help of an expert SEO agency that knows how to build links correctly and doesn’t use SEO techniques that the Penguin search optimisation algorithm doesn’t like. Speak to our Click Intelligence SEO experts, who would be happy to help you with the latest Penguin update.
