In yesterday’s Google Webmaster Central office hours, John Mueller commented that engineers are currently in the process of updated the Google Penguin algorithm. This is good news for those who may have been penalized by Penguin, as it has been over 9 months since we saw the last update to the Penguin algo.
John Mueller was talking about algo updates and how frequently they occur when he brought up an upcoming Penguin algorithm update. Here is a transcript of what he said (video is embedded below).
Some algorithms are a little bit more problematic in that we need to double check the data that they generate, for example the Penguin algorithm is something like that. So that is something that I believe has been almost 8-9 months or something like that. Some people probably know for sure.
That’s something I know the engineers are working on to kind of create an update to that as well. So that is definitely coming at some point.
Unfortunately he doesn’t reveal exactly when (although I am sure Barry Schwartz will ask at a future office hours), but it is good news that it is actively being worked on.
The Penguin algo was designed to decrease the visibility of “black hat” spam sites in the search results, using both traditional spam techniques such as keyword stuffing to some of the more technical or harder-to-spot spam.
The most recent Penguin update was released on October 4, 2013, which was the 5th version of the Penguin algo, also known internally at Google as Penguin 2.1.
H/T to Glenn Gabe.
Jennifer Slegg
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Donna says
It’s just crazy that it takes 9+ months for each update. Imagine getting hit, fixing problems, waiting for the next update, and then when it finally rolls around, you realize you didn’t do enough. If that happens just once, you’ll end up losing nearly 2 years of time, and if it happens more than once……yikes!
I’d be tempted to just throw in the towel immediately if I ever got hit with Penguin, rather than suffer for that long.
Thanh says
So there is still time for us to modify the anchor text. I hope that the Penguins will not come too soon.
Terry Van Horne says
Not surprising it has been 9mos. considering many SEOs have been doing negative SEO to themselves for months…. look at the YouMoz BS… absolutely that is not a good link because it is irrelevant to the “user” nor is it really germaine to the article on relationship building/marketing it was an unnecessary link…that it is a followed link on a “psuedo guest blogging network”… high quality editing does not make that link “legit” as it adds zero value to the article as a link… as a mention I see no problem… just my .02 Ca. …. and we all know what that’s worth 🙂
theSEMDude007 says
This is precisely why you do not put all of your eggs in one basket. You never know what might go wrong if your entire foundation is based on Google with no failover. Good to hear this has changed, just saying diversity is key.
Terry Van Horne says
“The Penguin algo was designed to decrease the visibility of “black hat” spam sites in the search results, using both traditional spam techniques such as keyword stuffing to some of the more technical or harder-to-spot spam.”
Jennifer great post I just think the above excerpt is kind of candy coating it. IMO, Penguin has nothing to do with blackhat as every cleanup I’ve done the sites were far from blackhat and in most cases the technique when employed was legit “at the time”. The problem is you seldom see anyone talking about future proofing their techniques ie: you use riskier techniques sparingly if at all.
Jennifer Slegg says
Yep, I was just trying to give the simplistic version of what Penguin is without having to go into super detail and that is the easiest quickie way to describe it. And for sure, a ton of the more common techniques people call blackhat today were just regular SEO techniques a few years ago. I figure when we actually do see Penguin finally drop its update, I’ll do a more in depth piece that covers all the nuances of it.