Google’s affection for naming their updates based on species from the animal kingdom didn’t stop when launching the Penguin algorithm updates it began pushing out back in 2012. This algorithm aimed purely at punishing websites and their search results that were achieved by using black hat or unethical seo techniques, those that violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines by artificially increasingly the rankings of certain webpages.
Now, two years later Google has added once more to the wide plethora of algorithms it uses to fight off spam, low quality content and unethical seo practices, which in turn offers far more concise search results for its global users. The Penguin 3.0 update was released on Friday, over a year since the previous update and of course has the world wondering how it will affect their web presences.
Well, you may have little to fear if your site incorporates healthy seo techniques, such as not having hundreds upon thousands of spammy external links from numerous low quality websites etc. Businesses across the world often begin to panic when they hear that an update has been released, but in essence the latest update is reportedly ‘nothing to worry about’, that is as long as your site is currently using ethical means of search engine optimisation and linking strategies.
As is often the case the update was poorly communicated by Google, they do seem to follow this trait very well; however the update was confirmed by Google’s Pierre Far, a Webmaster Trends Analyst for the leading search engine. Following a summary posted on Google+ the following shows a fairly standard update process that will continue over the next couple of weeks, on a global level:
• Ok, so Google Penguin 3.0 is a worldwide update. It will therefore impact all versions of Google, not just UK results.
• Taking a few weeks, some of you will experience slight fluctuations in search engine positions.
• The good news is that the update will impact less than 1% of English queries. Other languages may be impacted more or less, which is a little vague but the figure is still reasonably low.
• The update has been specifically referred to as a ‘refresh’.
• The purpose of which for this update is to target and demote websites with bad link profiles, helping those sites instead who were previously punished who have made efforts to clean up their link profiles.
The sixth installment in the Penguin saga from Google; the new update looks promising then for those websites who had previously been punished for use of poor techniques, perhaps following advice from badly managed seo providers for example. Google therefore looks set to reward those who have put the time and effort in to create ethical foundations for the continued re-marketing and advertising of their website presence. Follow us today to keep up to date on further releases from Google as they happen and visit us for more information on how to implement ethical seo techniques for your website today.
Authored by
Richard Morris
Senior Researcher
