Has the New Google update changed your ranking?

On April the 24th Google released a major algorithm update called Penguin, the first major change since last year’s Panda update (yes they really do use such names, it’s not just left to Android updates to make up silly titles). Whilst the Panda update concentrated mainly on plagiarised content, the ‘Penguin’ algorithm update targets websites that don’t have very high quality content and/or have had their ranking signals over optimised.

What does this mean for your website?

The Penguin update has been rolled out across all Google data centres, and will affect around 3-5% of all English Google queries, it will also have a similar effect to most non English search queries so bare this in mind if you optimise your website for other languages including Chinese and Arabic. Based on initial analyses and reports, sites affected by the Penguin update tend to show the following patterns:

• Websites that possess high traffic, keyword matching domains;
• Websites that have a high proportion of links with the same anchor text;
• With lower number of site pages;
• Websites that generally have higher keyword density throughout the site.
• Websites that have the majority of their back links to one page

The ‘Penguin’ update has been designed to reduce the prominence of less reputable websites in the search engine results and like the ‘Panda’ update to reduce bad practices when optimising a website. However, as with all Google updates, some genuine websites have also been affected. Google will often make changes to its new algorithm over the following weeks to correct any obvious adverse algorithmic side effects.

So what is the purpose of the ‘Penguin’ update?

This latest update seems to have been released with the aim of penalising any site which it believes is involved in ‘Over Optimisation’. General consensus within the SEO industry is that the ‘Penguin’ update is actually hitting some websites harder than last year’s ‘Panda’ update which was designed to do exactly the same all be it in a different way.

The main losers in this update seem to be sites that have been marked as receiving too much obvious over optimisation. (Drops of between 50 – 100 places for major keywords) However, some sites have only dropped a few positions and it appears that the ‘Penguin’ has deemed they have only a few factors over optimised.

Most of the negative affects have been known to Search Engine Optimisation companies for years as bad practice, but this obviously doesn’t help if you are in the 5% who have seen a down turn in your websites performance over the last month.
Have you been affected by Penguin?

Here are a few quick tips to discover if the Penguin has waddled through your site:

• Check keyword rankings for your high rankings terms and compare now with dates prior to April 24;
• Check your webpage analytics to see if there has been an obvious traffic drop after April 24.
• Another way to confirm this would be to compare weekly traffic from April 24, with previous traffic;
• You should also note that, if your rankings and traffic have increased since April 24th, you might have actually benefited from the update!

How to recover?

The Penguin update targets sites, which they believe have been involved in over optimisation. If you are one of those affected by Penguin, we recommend following these tips:

• Vary your anchor text: Penguin hates optimised anchor texts. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword ‘Cars for sale’, and you’re building links using the exact keyword, Penguin may penalise your website. We recommend building links to your site with varied anchor texts. For example, use anchor texts like ‘New cars for sale’ or ‘used cars for sale’, ‘Your Brand name’ etc.
• Get Social: Google plus has changed the way Google ranks organic results. Social Media should be an integral part of any SEO strategy. We recommend promoting your site on Face book, Twitter and especially Google Plus.
• Usability: Redesign your website to ensure visitors find what they are looking for. Follow Google’s guidelines to ensure, you are not affected by any search algorithm updates.
• Content: There is a saying in SEO ‘Content is King’. Quality content provides value to users, which make them stay longer and hopefully recommend it to their friends through social media. This in turn will generate more back links to your site, without any link building!
• Stay away from keyword spamming, high keyword density and remember to write content which provides that extra value to your users.

If you would like Monkfish SEO to see what affect the new ‘Penguin’ update has had on your website CLICK HERE and get a FREE SEO Health Check