What exactly is the Google Penguin Update?

The Google Penguin is another change Google made to their algorithm Announced on April 2012. The purpose was to decrease the search engine ranking of sites that violate Google’s webmaster Guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques related to keyword stuffing, low quality backlinks, link schemes, and others.

Spammy link signals, paid links using exact match anchor text, comment spam, guest posts on low quality sites, article marketing sites and links from dangerous sites were among the issues for some sites affected by the algorithmic change. (Taken from SearchEngineWatch.com)

When you think on the Google Penguin just think on “None Keyword Density” and “High Quality Link Building.” That’s all you need to think about it so you don’t get overwhelmed about all of the content about the topic. Just give a look at what Google thinks of SEO:

“Google has said before that search engine optimization, or SEO, can be positive and constructive… Effective search engine optimization can make a site more crawlable and make individual pages more accessible and easier to find…”

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site…” (Taken from Google)

What Google doesn’t like is what is called “back hat SEO.” What a black-hat SEO webmaster is looking for is to rank their webpages no matter what by not caring about quality and just for marketing or spam purposes. The 2 black hat SEO activities Google is against the most are “Keyword Stuffing” and “Link Schemes.”

Keyword stuffing consists of loading the content of a webpage with a lot of keywords out of context with the intention of ranking a site in the top of the results pages.

Links Schemes consists of any link intended to manipulate ranking in the Google search results. This includes links to your site or outgoing links from your site. This one is something Google really is after. Google does not like paid links, too many “follow links” (links from other pages that passes ranking power a specific page of your site), links exchanges, automatic link building, too many keyword- rich anchor text links, etc.

These are the two most important things about the Google Penguin update and in the next article you will see a really great list which will help you avoid the slap.

Next: How in the world do you avoid a Penguin Slap?