Marie Haynes says, “It has now been six months since the launch of Penguin 4.0. In my opinion, Penguin 4.0 was awesome. It took ages for Google to release this update, but when they did, it was much more fair than previous versions of Penguin. Previous versions of Penguin would cause entire sites to be suppressed if the algorithm thought that you’d engaged in manipulative link building. Even if a site did a thorough link cleanup, the suppression would remain present until Google re-ran the Penguin algorithm and recognized your cleanup efforts. I saw many businesses that had looooooong... [...]

Andrew Lovasz says, “Google has made yet another algorithm change with its Penguin 4.0 update. While it’s one of the thousands of changes it conducts each year, this one outweighs any of the other, more minor updates. Businesses can leverage Penguin 4.0 in their favor, however, as long as they understand the subtleties the new update entails. Google Penguin’s wobbly path In April 2012, Google cracked down on websites benefitting from links from contrived or “unnatural” outside websites. In perhaps the first ever move by a business to leverage the intelligence of the “crowd,”... [...]

Brian Ussery says, “With little fanfare, earlier this year Google rolled out a way to embed 360-degree VR media for headsets in search engine optimizable web pages accessible via desktop and mobile. That’s right, immersive VR videos and images for VR headsets can now be optimized for search, accessed directly from Google and experienced on desktops and mobile devices, with or without the need for a native mobile app or VR headset. (Full disclosure: I own stock in Google.) Considering Google has shipped over five million Cardboard VR headsets, and over 12 million VR headsets are expected... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “Penguin 4.0 was announced on September 23, and I couldn’t be more excited. I believe Penguin 4 will be a boon for (legitimate) SEO companies everywhere. We had to wait over 700 days for the newest iteration of Penguin; it was a long time coming, but now that it’s here, it’s more than I hoped. There a few reasons I welcome this new Penguin with open arms: The algorithm now devalues links rather than punishing sites. Penguin is baked into Google’s core algorithm, updating in real time. The feasibility of negative SEO is greatly diminished. The new Penguin is more... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “After almost a two-year wait, the latest Penguin update rolled out in late September and into early October. This roll-out is unusual in many ways, and it only now seems to be settling down. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen many reports of recoveries from previous Penguin demotions, but this post is about those who were left behind. What if you didn’t recover from Penguin? I’m going to work my way from unlikely, borderline conspiracy theories to difficult truths. Theories #1 and #2 might make you feel better, but, unfortunately, the truth... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “The Google Penguin real time algorithm which started rolling out on September 23, 2016, has now rolled out fully to all of Google’s data centers. The recovery aspect of this new Penguin algorithm started a bit after September 23 — aroundSeptember 28. Now that all data centers have the new code, those sites impacted by previousGoogle Penguin issues should have seen a recovery at some level if they took the necessary steps to clean up their links. As we covered early, Penguin looks at the link source for the most part — so if you still have very spammy links pointing... [...]

Jacob Baadsgaard says, “Have you ever opened up a paid search report and felt a jolt of fear? Maybe your new campaign wasn’t performing well. Maybe you’d inexplicably spent a ton on AdWords and had nothing to show for it. Maybe it was just more bad news in a losing fight for profitability. Regardless of your particular situation, if you’ve been in paid search for long, you’ve probably had that gut-wrenching feeling at some point. Turns out, there’s more to that feeling than you might have thought. After a series of rather extraordinary events, it’s become clear to me that there... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Here’s another nugget of information learned from the A conversation with Google’s Gary Illyes (part 1) podcast at Marketing Land, our sister site: Penguin is coined a “web spam” algorithm, but it indeed focuses mostly on “link spam.” Google has continually told webmasters that this is a web spam algorithm, but every webmaster and SEO focuses mostly around links. Google’s Gary Illyes said their focus is right, that they should be mostly concerned with the links when tackling Penguin issues. Gary Illyes made a point to clarify that it isn’t just the link,... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “In the A conversation with Google’s Gary Illyes (part 1) podcast at Marketing Land, our sister site, we learned that Google adds labels to your links. These labels can add classifications or attributes to the link, including whether the link is a footer link, whether it’s impacted by the latest Penguin update, whether it’s disavowed or other categorizations. A link can have multiple labels that make up the value and meaning of that link, which ultimately helps Google determine how to rank the related documents on the web. Google’s manual actions team may look... [...]

MOZ team says, “The dust is finally beginning to settle after the long-awaited rollout of Penguin 4.0. Now that our aquatic avian friend is a real-time part of the core Google algorithm, we’ve got some changes to get used to. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains Penguin’s past, present, and future, offers his analysis of the rollout so far, and gives advice for going forward (hint: never link spam)”. Penguin 4.0: How the Real-Time Penguin-in-the-Core-Alg Model Changes SEO MOZ  [...]