Introducing Penguin: How will Google’s Algorithm Changes Affect Your SEO?
Categories: Search Engine, Technology News
Google will change its search engine algorithms hundreds of times every year. Most will be minor, imperceptible tweaks, but every now and then, a major update will turn Search Engine Optimisation practices on their head.
Google’s “Penguin Update” (introduced late April) is one such update.
What will it fix?
Google openly supports SEO that falls under “white hat” optimisation: making sure the topics and target audience are addressed, providing regular, high-quality content and ultimately creating a better, faster user experience.
“Black hat” SEO, on the other hand, is optimisation aimed at pleasing search engine algorithms more than actual users. Three major violations the Penguin update discourages include:
- Over-Optimisation
This practice is often known as “link stuffing” – filling a page with keywords at the expense of content. As Google’s major SEO authority Matt Cuts puts it:
The goal of many of our ranking changes is to help searchers find sites that provide a great user experience and fulfill their information needs. We also want the “good guys” making great sites for users, not just algorithms, to see their effort rewarded.
- Link Schemes
This is the “quantity over quality” approach to building backlinks. Google rewards pages that are linked from a variety of high-quality sources. However, many will create links through less than savoury means, such as purchasing links specifically for a high PageRank, or by bombarding websites with too many worthless links. - “Doorway” Pages
Some online marketers will create entirely new, keyword-heavy websites that serve only to redirect visitors to the “real” page. Those caught out by the algorithm update may find both websites dropping off the front page one.
Who will it affect?
Time will tell.
Major Google updates always make SEO marketers a little nervous, and for good reason. While many low-quality websites and system abusers will find their rank dropping overnight, it remains to be seen if many “good” websites will be caught out as temporary “collateral damage”.
How much optimisation is too much? Where is the line between good promotion and repetition? This all remains to be seen.
It won’t be long before the ins and outs of these changes will be deduced, dissected and exploited for commercial gain. As always, however, the less ethical advantages will temporary, and ultimately rendered useless as the algorithms continue to evolve.
Our best move forward is to continue making websites as user-friendly, easy-to-navigate and full of good information as possible. In short, keep your standards high, create genuinely useful content and simply adapt if needed.



We recently discussed