Google Pushed Out The Major Penguin Update (v2.0 #4)

As I reported last night at Search Engine Land,Penguin 2.0 / 4 is now live - this is the next 

generation Penguin update. As Google's Matt Cutts added, this impacts 2.3% of English queries and also impacts other languages but the percentage depends on the level of spam in those languages.

Matt officially announced it while on This Week In Google see towards the very end of episode 199.

Matt said on his blog:

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally.

As you know, we've been expecting this for some time, since its been over 6 months since the previous Penguin data refresh. Again, this is not just a refresh, but an algorithmic update.

Here are the previous updates:

• Penguin 1 on April 24, 2012
• Penguin 2 on May 24, 2012
• Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012

There are lots of people complaining about ranking declines and some about boosts. It is too early to tell and I do expect to post a poll next week asking you if you were impacted or not.

I deeply hope you only were positively impacted by this update.

Forum discussion at Google+, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums,Black Hat World and Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Matt Cutts tweeted that you can submit feedback to Google via this form about spammy sites this update missed.

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO

Penguin 2.0 rolled out today

by MATT CUTTS on MAY 22, 2013

in GOOGLE/SEO

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.

Added: If there are spam sites that you’d like to report after Penguin, we made a special spam report form at http://bit.ly/penguinspamreport . Tell us about spam sites you see and we’ll check it out.

Google Penguin 2.0 Goes Deep - But What Does That Mean?

As you know, Penguin 2.0 #4 is live and webmasters and SEOs are buzzing about that. The thing is, some misconceptions about Penguin 2.0 are driving me absolutely crazy.

Matt Cutts, in his video about this update, talks about how Penguin 2.0 will be "more comprehensive," how this version "goes deeper" and will result in "more of an impact" than Penguin 1.0.

The SEO community is translating "goes deeper" to mean that Penguin 1.0 only impacted the home page of a web site. That is absolutely false. Deeper has nothing to do with that. Those who were hit by Penguin 1.0 know all to well that their whole site suffered, not just their home page.

What Matt meant by "deeper" is that Google is going deeper into their index, link graph and more sites will be impacted by this than the previous Penguin 1.0 update. By deeper, Matt does not mean how it impacts a specific web site architecture but rather how it impacts the web in general.

For example, Ross Hudgens tweeted "Penguin 1 targets homepage, 2 goes "much deeper." I said back no and ended at that. But he and others did not get it. The Webmaster World thread has webmasters confused about it also, where someone said "I don't understand this idea that Penguin 1.0 just looked at the home page." You are right, it is completely wrong to think that way.

Normally I don't get heated up about misconceptions in the industry - but seriously.

Update: I see now where the confusion comes from, via TWIG, right over here where Matt said Penguin looks at the home page of the site. Matt must mean Penguin only analyzed the links to the home page. But anyone who had a site impacted by Penguin noticed not just their home page ranking suffer. So I think that is the distinction.

Happy Birthday Google's Penguin Update

Today is the one year birthday/anniversary of the release of Google's Penguin update - it was released on April 24, 2012.

Since then, we've had two additional updates of it on May 24, 2012 and then on October 5, 2012. Now we await the fourth update which is expected to be really big sometime this year.

This update was felt by more SEOs than the Panda update. In fact, our polls (very scientific ones) said 65% of SEOs were impacted by the update. And our polls also show that94% didn't fully recover from the Penguin update. So this update is serious business for SEOs, webmasters, businesses and of course, Google.

Now that it has been a year, let me ask you if you recovered yet. Take my poll below: Here is a birthday video one webmaster made for the Penguin update:

Now, I know joking about this update is insulting to many SEOs and webmasters. But sometimes, we need a smile. I hope anyone impacted by Penguin or any Google update finds their way back to making a lot of money via Google.