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The new Google Penguin algorithm aims to decrease search engine rankings of websites that use forbidden link building. This most recent update was released on 17th of October, and it’s the sixth installment of this algorithm thus far. It focuses on spammy backlink profiles, but according to an official source, it affects less than 1% of US search queries. Now while that doesn’t sound like much, it’s actually quite a significant amount.
Let’s first update you on the history of Penguin:
- Penguin 1.0 was released on April 24, 2012 and at that time 3.1% of search queries were affected at the time of the release
- Penguin 1.1 was published in May 2012 and less than 0.1% were affected, so you can see that this one was a minute alteration
- Penguin 1.2 was released in October 2012 and affected 0.3%
- Penguin 2.0 was released in May 2013 in which it had the biggest effect: 2.3% of search queries. This was more than double of any other release.
- Penguin 2.1 came shortly after the May release 2013- this was released October 4, 2013 and affected 1% of queries. When you look at these last two releases, you can see there was a huge impact within those four months.
- Penguin 3.0 was just released October 17, 2014 and the estimate of those search queries affected will be around 1%.
With all that said, you can see search engine optimization has changed significantly since May 2013 based on the amount of search queries being affected. What I would like to do is take a closer look at the most recent update – the Penguin 3.0 update for “Spammy Backlink Profiles.”
Here is a blog on how to identify spammy backlinks pointing at your website:
http://storecoach.com/tutorials/how-to-identify-spammy-backlinks-pointing-at-your-website)
…and here is a definition of a back link spam:
http://faux.oit.gatech.edu/projects/backlinks/article/overview.html
Agency owners need to hire the right search engine optimization company to be able to fill you in with exactly what may be going on with your agency’s website and spamming back links. I hired an individual that I call SEO Eddie to handle my agency’s SEO- both for the website and social media sites. Understanding what is going on within the world of Google can be very lucrative for your agency. However, not understanding algorithm changes and SEO changes in the world of Google could be detrimental to the growth of your agency. Find an individual or company who speaks to agents in layman’s terms so that we can understand the updates and the changes in the world of Google. This is by far one of the most critical and most effective ways of having a positive ROI with the Internet.
