The Penguin effect
The Penguin algorithm primarily looks at a site’s backlink profile and
may demote a site that appears to have a poor backlink profile. The
update, as confirmed by Google, is a worldwide update and impacts all
versions of Google.
Unlike some of Google’s other algorithm updates, such as the Panda
algorithm, the Penguin update typically launches globally. So sites in
any language, any region, are all open to the potential impact of this
algorithm.
Why? Since Penguin is mostly about link profiles, language doesn’t
really need to be looked at by the algorithm. Panda looks more at
content and language, thus those algorithms roll out different by region
or language. Penguin doesn’t need to worry about language, for the most
part.
Impact
The roll out began on last Friday, and is still going on right now. So
far, it has impacted about 1% of all English queries, and should demote
sites with bad link profiles and help sites that were previously hit
that cleaned up their link profiles.
In the past, the first version of Penguin impacted about 3.1% of queries
and was considered as one of the biggest updates. 1.1 effected 0.1% and
1.2 effected 0.3% of the queries. Then Penguin 2.0 had a 2.3% impact
and 2.1 about 1%. Penguin 3.0, which some may argue is 2.2 and not 3.0,
impacted less than 1% of queries. Now, it may be higher in other
languages, but Google’s measurement was English queries.
According to Google, this update is a “refresh,” and so far, there is no
mention of any new signals or additions to the algorithm in any way. A
refresh in Google’s terminology around algorithms means they just re-ran
the algorithm to release sites that fixed their issues and demote sites
that had issues they didn’t pick up on. They did not add any new
signals to the algorithm to find Penguin related sites, it was just a
refresh.
Just a refresh even after waiting over a year? Indeed and this is pretty
shocking to most of those in the SEO industry. Many expected a refresh
could have happened way earlier and that Google was laying the ground
work for a new Penguin algorithm.
Like any algorithm refresh, some sites that were previously hit would
see a ranking increase because they are no longer negatively impacted by
the algorithm. While other sites may see a ranking drop in the search
results because they were just picked up as sites that should be
impacted by the Penguin algorithm.
What has the impact of this algorithm been so far on your website? Let us know in the comments section below! All the best :)