Penguin: What Everyone Needs to Know

The launch of Penguin has lead to a lot of speculations and half truths. The update has impacted a lot of businesses and individuals. One of the things which people have found out about Penguin is to be mindful of their content. Content which is spammy and of low quality will no longer be entertained and given value by Google. Aside from content, what other things should people look out for?

There is much more going on with Penguin than just content. There is so much to it than what we see at the surface. It is a must to fully understand the update and how it works in order to ensure your high ranking and good traffic.

SEO

SEO or search engine optimization has had a rough year with the updates. This is because of the algorithm updates and changes. Although these changes were meant to improve the search engine, the quality of the results and the experience of the users, they have affected almost everyone in the industry.

The algorithm in the Penguin update seems to have a new purpose. It is no longer just bent on getting rid of webspam. It also wants to get rid of bad SEO, as well.

Webspam

Although not a lot of people will admit to it, it is a fact that there are certain SEO tactics which when hidden well enough, will help you get away with almost everything, even if others know about it. It seems that this is what Google is after now. They want to police websites and punish those who are caught not abiding with the terms of service.

Everyone will suffer the Penguin’s wrath, be it authors, tool creators and link builders. However, it is more than just this. Aside from being called out for violations of the terms of service, you could also end up suffering from low rankings just because of a spammy comment on a website. It is also a must to have a clear understanding of how the algorithm works because lack of understanding of the new update can result to loss of audiences and lower rankings.

Why?

Everyone is asking why Google would do such a thing when they know a lot of businesses and sites will be affected by it. Why would they go after people providing services and not just spammers? They should focus more on sites breaking the TOS, right?

Well, there is an answer to that and it may not be as shocking to some as it is to many. SEO is not always SEO. There are many issues in the industry which Google is trying its best to regulate. There are various firms and individuals who pretend to do legitimate SEO and may even appear to be doing a very good job but not all of them can be trusted. So many people have ended with empty wallets and nothing to show for it.

There is certainly no certain fixed steps which can make websites rank well in results and there are certainly no shortcuts to doing this if you want to do it right. SEO practitioners should police themselves and ensure that there is no black magic going on to achieve good results.