What is the Google Penguin?

Google initially launched the Penguin Update back in April 2012 to minimise the number of sites considered as ‘spammy’ appearing in its search results.  Site owners buying links through link networks designed to fool Google in to ranking the sites higher than others were well within the scope of the Penguin. It has now been over a year since the last Penguin update.

What happened with the update?

While many site owners were anxiously anticipating the update to take effect right before Christmas this year, they can now relax (a little) knowing that Google just announced that the update has been delayed until after Christmas.   Obviously Christmas & the holiday period is a very busy time for e-commerce stores, so one could guess that Google considered the impact to those site owners.

One major difference of note in this Penguin update is that its now ‘real time’, meaning that if your site gets caught out you can now recover much more quickly.  That’s also great news for sites that have lost ranking and are still waiting for the refresh to recover.

How do I avoid being caught up in the update?

The tip on how to escape the wrath of the latest Penguin real-time update is to make sure your backlinks aren’t spammy backlinks.

 

By Tim Syratt at Call Dynamics