Google Penguin Algorithm: How penguin still affects SEO to this day

This is how a Google Algorithm has changed the way SEO works since its unofficial launch in 2012. 

Google Penguin Update

In 2016, Google officially released one of its largest algorithm updates called Penguin. This update targets webspam and black hat SEO strategies that involve spammy backlinking strategies. This webspam algorithm update targets websites with lower quality backlinks. 

This means that websites that were using spammy backlinking strategies to gain a higher ranking in Google, whether it was relevant or not, would be affected and prioritized in monitoring. These websites could see a decline in ranking and organic traffic. 

The biggest thing to keep in mind when it comes to the Penguin Algorithm is that it monitors links that are backlinking to your website, not links that you are linking back to other websites. 

This means if you have 10K backlinks referring to your services page or blog, and all of the websites that the links are coming from are low-quality sites, Google takes into consideration these links and a website can see possible immediate impacts. 

What if your website is following guidelines, but you still notice a drop? This can be from a cluster of keywords as well. As mentioned above, part of this update is related to keyword stuffing. If Google notices that there are a number of specific keywords that are heavily spammed, Google will review those as well. 

The exception in all of this? 

If you have yet to receive a notification regarding your website’s strategies, you can find yourself relaxing for a bit. There are times that the Google Penguin Update doesn’t penalize websites for spammy backlinks. 

Hear us out. 

John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google states, “Penguin does try to ignore the spammy links. However, in cases where Google cannot because there is a “very strong pattern” of spammy links pointing to the site, Penguin may penalize and distrust the site as a whole and not act in the granular way it was designed for.” 

This means that if you have 100 spammy backlinks linking to the service or blog pages, it will not be penalized, but as mentioned above, 10K would be penalized. 

What is an expert SEO company’s recommendation to watch out for? 

1. Over-optimized anchor texts

There are 10 types of anchor text, and this keyword phrase with the code of a website is all part of this. The phrase will take consumers to a different part of the website or an external website. This is part of the entire link-building process, and these phrases affect the entire strategy. 

Here is a great example of an anchor text from Moz. 

Search engines use these external anchor texts to see what sources or websites are backlinking to your website. 

2. Irrelevant links 

There are a plethora of irrelevant, bad links that can be linked back to your website. The main five are:

PR Releases links (depending on how they are done) 

Links from irrelevant industries

Discussion form and blog comment links

Links from link-mill websites

Spammy sites

The source is what matters. If you are struggling to know who that company is backlinking to your site, or the source doesn’t make sense, it is one of these five links. 

How does Penguin still affect SEO? 

The update continues to affect SEO to this day. This is because this update is constantly monitoring the components of SEO listed above. It all affects the user experience, which if you have been keeping up with the industry, is one of the top-ranking factors in new updates.

Since its official launch in 2016, the Google Penguin Algorithm has continued to evolve with other core and algorithm updates. For more information on SEO or our packages, contact us today.