What to Know Now that Penguin 4.0 is Live
After what seemed like the longest of years, after first being announced to debut a year ago, Google has finally released the latest version of its Penguin algorithm designed to crack down on shady link building practices. With the way things have changed since the last Penguin update–from Google coming out against guest posting to the focus on mobile–it’s understandable if you’re struggling to remember how, exactly, Penguin will affect your work going forward, especially since you likely .
First and foremost, unlike past versions of Penguin, there will be no Penguin 5.0. That’s because all updates or changes to the algorithm will now be made in real time, so any changes made to your site will be reflected the next time your site is crawled or indexed. The second major adjustment is the fact that Google now devalues the page itself that the web spam is coming from, not the entire website. So the days of worrying about having a few bad pages destroying all your rankings is gone.
Overall, experts have greeted the new algorithm with relative enthusiasm, after 700 days spent speculating over the different ways the algorithm could shake out. While experts are praising the increased ability on the user’s part to reverse a Google penalty, there’s also an increased awareness about sites’ ability to be penalized and a considered weighing of how much questionable practices a business wants to engage in. Indeed, experts are warning people about their ability to get penalized even through the use of grey hat tactics.
In addition to the increased response time, another feature people are praising with the update is the granular nature of Penguin 4.0. By this we mean the algorithm is so sophisticated that it can delve into a site and identify the problematic links without penalizing the whole site. This is being seen by many as a serious compromise on the behalf of Google as the search giant can now essentially slap users on the wrist for questionable link building while the webmasters that receive the penalty no longer have to face an indefinite review period for their penalty to be lifted.
Finally, while any algorithm update comes with its share of fear that a site’s traffic will be seriously diminished, the new Penguin update has yet to cause near the widespread chaos that Penguin caused for many webmasters. And what should those who are penalized do to avoid such a problem in the future? Besides playing by the rules that Google sets forth, moving away from a strategy focused on link building is one of the assured ways to avoid get penalized. Focus on creating new and relevant content instead of getting new and exciting links; by focusing on content you will sure to earn the links you need to succeed.
