Google recently released it’s latest algorithm update: Penguin 4.0. While Google likes to pick innocuous sounding animal names like Penguin and Panda, if you’re on the bad side of one of these seemingly cute animals, your website rankings surely won’t be so cute. This new, “real-time” algorithm update’s goal is to scour the web for spammy links and content and banish them to the dark depths of Google. Needless to say, you should fear the wrath of the penguin.
But it’s not all doom and gloom! The real-time nature of the algorithm comes with relief of knowing that if your website was recently slapped by a Google penguin demotion, there is hope of correcting your mistakes or errors and seeing a relatively quick reemergence in the rankings. Another good thing is that instead of “penalizing” your website for spammy links, Google will now simply discount those links and basically “neutralize” them.
If you have seen a recent drop in your rankings, it was likely due to the recent Penguin update. So what does that mean exactly? While no one knows exactly how it works (other than the mad scientists at Google), simply put, the algorithm judges your website on a page-by-page level and looks for “link spam”. While it is mostly based on on links, it is believed to focus on both content AND link quality.
So what does this all mean? Keep focusing on white hat, above the board internet marketing strategies and link building. Cross linking between your websites, buying links, spammy comments, unnatural link profiles with keyword dense anchor text are just a few of the obvious no-no’s. Focus on real links from social media, other local community websites, relevant legitimate directories, guest posting, blogging and creating Evergreen content like infographics, white papers, detailed FAQs, etc.
Need some help with the constantly changing world of internet marking and SEO? Contact New Wine Web Design today and we’ll guide you through the process or simply take it off your hands!
Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (11/7/2016) dmwSpyder (Flickr)