Over the weekend, it was confirmed that Google has updated their Google Penguin algorithm. Or, at least while I write this, Google apparently is still in the process of updating it. So, if your website was previously hit by the Google Penguin algorithm, then there is a chance that your site may recover if you’ve truly cleaned up your site’s links.
We Can’t Talk Google Penguin 3.0 Recovery Yet
What disturbs me greatly, after having been practicing search engine optimization since 1996, is that the Google Penguin 3.0 update is not even officially been rolled out yet. There is no official announcement from Google in the form of one of their employees announcing it. Reportedly, Google’s John Mueller will announce it in a Google Plus post when they’re done rolling Google Penguin 3.0 out. There is no announcement yet, although some enterprising “search engine optimization expert” felt as if they have all the answers, and published this:
“Penguin 3.0: The Definitive Guide To Diagnosis And Recovery” on Forbes.com. This is totally uncalled-for. It’s snake oil. Google Penguin 3.0 has not officially completed, yet we have someone telling us how to recover from Google Penguin 3.0. That’s absurd.
How can someone accurately and professionally predict how to “recover” from Google Penguin 3.0 when it’s not even done yet, and since this writer does not have any access to Google’s employees or their internal data, he is just speculating:
In many ways, Penguin 3.0 is similar to its predecessors. Its intention is to cut down on spam and improve search results by eliminating or penalizing links that don’t appear to be naturally built.
Sure, IF this update’s intention is to target unnaturally built links (and it most likely is), then cleaning up a site’s unnatural links is warranted. But again, we do not officially know yet, we don’t have any word from Google about the intention of Google Penguin 3.0. There’s no blog post.
Then there’s even more speculation:
While each round of the Penguin update is significant, the most impactful updates still only hit around 3-4 percent of all search queries.
This could be a very significant update, eventually affecting 30 percent or more of search queries: it’s still rolling out. By putting numbers like this out there, it’s merely speculation, and not something that I’d expect to see on Forbes.com.
The author goes on to recommend recovery steps from Google Penguin 3.0. Again, it’s so early (within a few days) and the Google Penguin 3.0 update isn’t even completed yet. It’s totally irresponsible at this point to talk about recovery, since it’s just too early in the game. No one can possibly begin to recommend steps to recover from this latest Google update. Sure, we know how to recover if your site was hit by a Penguin update from the 1.0 to 2.0, but there are sites who have cleaned up links the “traditional” way, and have not seen any improvements after the start of Penguin 3.0. I use the term “traditional” very loosely here.
At this point, we can only look at our website link profile and refer to the Google Webmaster Guidelines that cover links. Make sure that the links pointing to your website don’t violate any of Google’s guidelines. If you are confident that you’re not violating their guidelines, then great–you won’t need to contact me about cleaning up your website’s links.
It’s just too early to predict how to clean up or recover from Google Penguin 3.0. After all, we officially don’t even know (technically) how to recover from Google Penguin 2.0, we don’t know what it takes.