Last updated on June 5th, 2012
In the 3rd the week of April, Google released a major update the search giant dubbed “Penguin.” The algorithmic update was in fact announced ahead of time…we expected it to be pretty significant.
Now that over a month has passed since it was released, we’ve been able to get a better idea of the types of sites Google penalized and what affected webmasters can do to deal with the problem.
After scouring trusted sources and evaluating how sites we work with fared, we’re able to report some of the technical aspects of why sites were penalized and what can be done to reclaim lost rankings. Google reported that only 3% of sites were affected but after browsing through the message boards, we found that a lot more sites were likely affected – many of whom have been forced to lay off staff and scale back their enterprises.
(When Google’s last big update came out in 2010 (…dubbed “Panda”), the search engine also claimed it only affected 3% of sites when in fact many more were reporting rankings issue)
According to this video broadcast from SEOMoz (below), many sites caught up in the update may have had some undesirable linking practices, although there are other reasons too.
One principal issue is the type of links (…or footprints) going to your site.
Now you may be thinking paid vs. solicited links but that is most definitely NOT the issue.
The issue with links revolves around their relevancy to your content. If more than half of your links are similar to the content on your site, you may have been affected by the Penguin update.
The other big factor in play involves content.
For the last several years, Google has been arduously filtering out content that doesn’t meet its standards for quality. Sites across the ‘Net includes thousands of mediocre articles, blog posts and so on. Google claims this is to produce the best, most relevant results for its users.
Be that as it may – one thing is absolutely clear, you have to build content that provides true value and doesn’t just give search engines more stuff to sort out.
This of course isn’t the first time we’ve brought this up and it won’t certainly be the last.
Our friends at the Content Marketing Institute provides some good suggestions in developing content that both provides value to the reader and good, crawlable content for Google
From a content perspective, CMI suggests you:
- Only use keywords when relevant. Don’t insert a keyword just for the sake of having a keyword
- Make your content more social. Share it on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest among other things
- Create a useful resource people will want to refer to
- Create content for other websites and blogs
- Participate in online forums by adding valuable insights into the discussion
- Regularly publish a newsletter
- Maximize your conversion rate
Considering these points will help your site regain lost ground.
So there’s a quick summary of the Penguin update and what you can do to rebuild the damage done – both from an SEO and content perspective. Check out some related posts and the video below for more information.
If you think you haven’t had any of the issues mentioned, you can of course petition Google to manually review your site…but be careful. If you indeed have an issue, you may be penalized more.
And absolutely keep this mind – if you get an email from an SEO claiming they can fix any Penguin issues in a hurry, delete that email and pay it no mind.
Dealing with these issues will certainly take time.
Only work with a search engine optimization firm that truly understands this and who will not end up costing you more in the end.
Have you been affected by Penguin? If so, how are dealing with the impacts? Leave us a comment here on our blog or over on our Facebook today!
Other Posts You May Be Interested In
Penguin Update Targets Link Schemes and Low-Quality Content
3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to Another Site
Answer these 23 Questions to Understand What Google Looks For
Google Panda Update Causes Some Sites to Lose Traffic, Revenues
Latent Semantic Indexing and Keywords – A New Way to Look at Copy
11 Steps to Increasing Keyword Saturation while Maintaining Valuable Content
Content Marketing over Traditional Advertising – Making the Case