What the Penguin Update Means for Your SEO

Internet Marketing companies around the world were shocked when they first heard about Google’s Penguin Update back in April. The Algorithm update to Google’s search spiders was aimed at destroying low quality links that many search marketers have been using for years to build up their websites.  But the real question many people are wondering about is what exactly is Penguin and what does it mean for your company’s SEO tactics in general.

What is Penguin?

An algorithim update released on April 24th, Penguin is Google’s attack on over optimized sites.  Since the dawn of the internet people have been using a variety of black-hat tactics that Google discourages from, in order manipulate the search results to get their website to show up at the top of page 1 for a given keyword. Such black-hat tactics include duplicate content, keyword stuffing, and the over use of content farms. Penguin was created to ward off these tactics and penalize the people who do use them.

 What is over optimization?

If you’ve ever bought a link or done anything unnatural to gain links, chances are you’ve over optimized your website in the eyes of Google.  Unnatural in Google’s eyes includes buying a link or submitting content to a low level site, in order to gain a link.

Are you affected by Penguin?

If you’ve discovered that you’ve been penalized by Penguin, the first thing that you need to do is to make a plan of action.  In very few instances will you be able to contact Google and get for forgiveness.  If you have been hit by Penguin or any of it’s updates, you should immediately call your internet marketing team or agency, and develop a plan of action. Though some SEO experts might claim that building a new website will be the best course of action and that you should start over from scratch, this might have a negative effect on your brand and current customer base.  It might be best to develop a plan of action, to remove these links from the Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPs) and start from there.

How can you prevent this?

Use natural link building methods such as content creation and spread your content out through your social networks.  Let your fans be your link builders.  If you create awesome content they will more than likely want to share it and link to it on their blogs and websites. Remember, when hiring an internet marketing company or SEO expert, do your research and find how they get the links they claim they get. When getting a link, always ask yourself will this link seem natural to the search engines, because if not your link building might cause an alarm to Google.  When link building, the golden rule is to always ask yourself does the link seem unnatural, because if it’s unnatural to you it’s probably unnatural to Google as well.

Tags: Google • Search Engine Optimization