What Is Google's Penguin Update?

By Jake Freeman


Search Marketing has undergone some huge changes this year. First Panda and now Penguin. Google continues to release search algorithm changes that have impacted webmasters and small business search rankings. Google stated these changes were intended to promote better search results and reduce spam. Sounds great but we've seen a ton of activity in the Internet marketing community discussing the changes and their impact to search results across the board.

We're still gathering information about the impacts these changes have had. We do know several sites with affiliate links were severely impacted as well as sites with keyword stuffing. Google has stated that keyword density and overuse are things of the past. Early data also suggests back-links took a hit when the same keyword anchor was used repeatedly. This would suggest using multiple phrases as a good approach.

Google also targeted quality content. Creating great material that is well presented is quickly becoming more and more important. Weak article spinning is a thing of the past. The best approach to creating links naturally is by creating unique articles aimed at niche that get passed along by readers, not computers. Webmasters and SEO consultants need to be more focused on gaining natural links and creating quality content that gets attention from both search engines and readers.

Social media continues its rise in the Internet marketing landscape as well. Around the same time of the release of Penguin, Google announced a new Google Analytics offering directed at social media monitoring. You are now able to track your traffic back to see how the visitor arrived and see a wealth of information about your campaigns. It suggests that using social media is becoming paramount for search marketing campaigns. They can be leveraged to promote quality content that gets natural attention.

It was a really busy year for both Google and Webmasters. It will probably be a few more months before the ups and downs resulting from these changes starts to stabilize. I sincerely hope those who promote spam were the worst effected by these changes. Hopefully it will take a long time for them to figure out loopholes in the algorithm and return to the first page. Of course Google isn't done with changes of this type. In fact, they've stated there is more to come in the way of promoting search results focused on quality, unique content. We can hope they change things for the better but also do their best to protect honest webmasters focused on search marketing.




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