Google’s Black-Hat Algorithm – famously known in the SEO world as Penguin, hasn’t been updated in over a YEAR and the day has finally come where Penguin 3.0 has been released. Google’s John Mueller stated on Monday morning at around 10:55 am that Google has completely and successfully rolled out Penguin 3.0.
Google has gone to great lengths to remove all links that could be interpreted by Google as being a part of a link scheme. Since it is still in its early stages, it is unclear whether or not your website will be a hit or miss. Reports have shown that users, whose websites were hit with the algorithm update, found that the spam tolerance is much higher than expected and are wondering if it will be applied on a page level instead of domain level.
What to keep in mind for the future of Penguin 3.0:
- Mass and unnatural link building will be punished
- Google is definitely trying to catch every link spammer to make their lives harder
- Keep your 301 redirects close. And by close, I mean be sure to actually do them
- Be sure that every backlink on your site conforms to Google Webmasters Guildelines
Basically, if you practiced White Hat SEO – you should not have noticed a difference.
If you are looking for more information on whether or not your website has been affected by the Penguin update, you can go to https://reconsideration.org/. This website compares your website traffic during each Penguin release date (unfortunately there hasn’t been a Penguin update in over a year). If a drop in traffic coincides with an update, you have probably been impacted by Penguin and need to do some major damage control.
Keep on Keepin’ On White Hat SEO!