SEO: About Google’s Penguin 3.0 Update
In early October, Gary Illyes of Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst and Search Quality Engineer hinted at a seminar that users can expect a new & refresh of Penguin algorithm to happen this month. As expected on Friday, October 17th, 2014, Google updated its Penguin algorithm. This was one of the most anticipated update in history, because there are rumors that said Google was going to release the new Penguin algorithm in early 2014 or in the summer.
The is the 6th release of Penguin algorithm which was started back in April 24, 2014 and the latest update or Penguin 2.1 was released in October 4, 2014. About the new Penguin algorithm update or Penguin 3.0, Pierre Far of Google explained more details with the conclusion like this:
- The Penguin 3.0 update is a worldwide update and impacting all version of Google
- Even though the new Penguin update has been released but Penguin 3.0 is not yet complete and will continue for the next few weeks
- This new update impacting less than 1% of English queries but could impacting other languages
- Google said that Penguin 3.0 began to roll out on Friday, October 17, 2014
- This is a refresh update said Pierre Far specifically
- It should downgrade sites that having bad profile and help sites that previously were hit to cleaned up their link profiles
Unlike Panda algorithm update and other Google’s algorithm updates, Penguin update launches globally. So websites in any region and any language are all have potential to get impact from this algorithm update. This is because Penguin algorithm is mostly directing to link profiles, so language doesn’t really a focus of this algorithm.
But from analysis of Dr. Pete Meyers with Moz, they weren’t seeing any signs of impact in early next week or at October 20th, from Penguin 3.0, and they called the update as a weak one. But in October 23rd, there was a report about a small increase in rankings, and turned out that Penguin 3.0 is still not yet completed so expect changes in the next few weeks. And Christoph Cemper from LinkResearchTools uncovered a few winners and loser of the newest Penguin update like Ebay and most sites in Australia.
SEO experts still searching of what Penguin 3.0 exactly focuses on, but their early assumption is that this update is just a continue focus phase on exterminate the above offenders from the index. Also there are some people called the new Penguin update as Penguin 2.2 and not 3.0 because it doesn’t have much impact. Such as in Penguin 2.1, it’s impacting about 1% of English queries, while the new update is only impacting less than 1%. But because the new Penguin algorithm update is not yet completed, so SEO experts is in ‘wait and see’ mode, to find out what is exactly Penguin 2.2 or Penguin 3.0 impacting on.