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Penguin 2.0 Update
by systemWed, May 29th 2013 12:00 pm
Search Engine Optimization is an ever-changing industry, filled with algorithm updates and best practices, used to keep SEOs from using spammy techniques to achieve better rankings.
One such update, known as Penguin 2.0, occurred last week as documented by Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team. Cutts published the following post on his blog on Tuesday, May 22, 2013:
We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.
This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we've been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.
Added: If there are spam sites that you'd like to report after Penguin, we made a special spam report form at http://bit.ly/penguinspamreport. Tell us about spam sites you see and we'll check it out.
So what does this new update focus on?
Link spam
Link spam isn't new, but Google is still making it a priority to tackle manipulative links. The best way to avoid a penalty is to avoid any tactics that could be interpreted as link spam, including: buying links, posting to directories, blog commenting, forum posts, etc.
Advertorials
Google wants to crack down on advertorials as they violate standard link buying terms and conditions. Paid content placements, such as sponsored blog posts, will need to include a disclaimer and only include 'nofollow' links.
Hacked sites
Google has provided resources in their Webmaster Tools for sites that have been hacked without the owner's knowledge. Webmaster's now have the chance to report and repair their sites, before their SEO takes a hit.
Authority
For a brand to be successful in the search rankings, they need to become an authority within the topic they expect to rank for. Proof of authority is determined by items such as Author Rank, Google Plus and social media activity, and structured data/rich snippets.
Ideally, your content should be associated with your Google+ account, allowing Google to process your conversations and level of influence on Google+, and then apply it to your website's rankings.
If your SEO took a hit after this latest update, please contact an Account Manager at 360psg.com to learn how we can help get your rankings back on track.
