Google Penguin
SEO Experts

Google Penguin is the name given to an algorithm dedicated to reducing the rankings of websites that violate Google’s Guidelines. Google Penguin uses black-hat SEO techniques. These techniques used by Google Penguin are those such as keyword stuffing and deliberate content duplication. Google Penguin uses all techniques available to perform Google Penguin’s role.

Google Penguin was released in April 2012, but it was not named as Google Penguin until a couple of days later as Google Penguin was decided on as the official name. Google Penguin was immediately put to work and Google Penguin is estimated to affect around 3.1% of search queries in English. Google Penguin also affects around the same percentage of other mass used languages. It is thought that Google Penguin affects an even larger percentage of websites in languages regularly used for spamming.

Google Penguin has already undergone several updates with Google Penguin 1.1 being released in May 2012. This version of Google Penguin was designed to impact less that 0.1% of searched in English with the aim of Google Penguin targeting sites using manipulation to achieve high Google Penguin rankings. Google Penguin 3 was released in October 2012 and Google Penguin affected around 0.3% of queries.

Google Penguin works hand in hand with Google Panda to provide high quality results within a search. Google Penguin targets spamdexing, and Google Penguin also addresses link bombing. There is still active development of Google Penguin being carried out and Google Penguin has been receiving feedback since its release. Websites that feel they were unfairly hit by Google Penguin can appeal and there is also an ongoing project to address unusual linking as identified by Google Penguin that may not be as unusual as stated by Google Penguin.

Many people have been hit by Google Penguin and this is because of the way that Google Penguin treats links. If Google Penguin identifies what Google Penguin defines as a spam link, then Google Penguin will downgrade the rank of the page. Google Penguin impacts on organic Google traffic and any effects of Google Penguin will be seen here. The reason that Google Penguin can be harmful to a site is because Google Penguin analyses inbound links and Google Penguin searches for unnatural links. Google Penguin appears to use anchor text as the primary signal that Google Penguin looks for. If there is a lot of identical anchor text Google Penguin will flag each of these as unnatural and Google Penguin will devalue each and every one of these. The Google Penguin devaluation results in a decrease in ranking position for each link.

Google Penguin is forcing a change in the amount of identical anchor text used on a site. Google Penguin acts as a penalty for over-optimisation and Google Penguin affects a site’s rankings accordingly. This action of Google Penguin means that many sites will have to reassess their inbound link profiles so that Google Penguin does not unnecessarily downgrade a site’s ranking. For some sites that have suffered because of Google Penguin it will take a great deal of work to be able to recover from the Google Penguin approach to links.