Google Penguin - What is a Penguin? Complete guide

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In the last article we reviewed the Google Panda algorithm, it's time to get acquainted with the filter Google Penguin or Google Penguin. To some extent, both of these algorithms are similar, and even complement each other. Thus, our search with you becomes more and more pure.

The content of the article:

• What is Google Penguin or Penguin?
• Google Penguin 4.0
• What is the trigger for the Penguin?
• How do you know if a site has fallen under the wing of a penguin?
• How to recover from Penguin?

What is Google Penguin or Penguin?

This is the cryptonym of the Google Algorithm Update, which was first announced on April 24, 2012. Google's update aims to lower search engine rankings for sites that violate the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

It was designed for techniques called black hat SEO which are used to artificially boost a web page's rank by manipulating the number of links pointing to a page. These tactics are commonly referred to as link schemes. According to Google employee John Mueller, Google has announced to the public all updates to the Penguin filter.

Google Penguin 4.0

On September 23, 2016, Google announced that the Google Penguin has become part of its core algorithm, updating it in real time. Therefore, Google will no longer make announcements about future updates to this algorithm. In addition, they evaluate sites in real time, and also influence rankings in real time.

Instead, in recent years, Google's webmasters have had to always wait for the next update to be released in order to avoid being penalized by Penguin. Google Penguin 4.0 is also more granular than previous updates because it can affect an entire site based on a URL rather than an entire site.

Also, Penguin 4.0 differs from previous versions of Penguin in that it doesn't downgrade a site if it finds bad links: instead, it discounts links. This means it ignores them and websites no longer count towards rankings.

As a result, there is less need to use a rejection file, as Google uses both human reviewers and algorithms to detect artificial (unnatural) links that are misleading or manipulative. It includes them in the manual activity report of its websites. While links are still very important for rankings, bots don't treat all links the same way. So, link quality has taken on a lot of importance since this update.

What is the trigger for the Penguin?

Penguin targets two specific practices:

1. Filling with keywords: This is filling the page with repeated keywords or a large number of keywords. The goal is to manipulate rankings based on the importance of certain search phrases.
2. Link schemes: is buying, acquiring or developing backlinks from irrelevant or low quality sites. For example, a company may decide to fill the Internet with spam comments that link to it, showing that it is the best company. The company may also pay for links that claim to be the best and the links appear in unrelated third-party articles on a different topic.

This practice results in an unnatural picture of relevance and popularity in order to manipulate Google into ranking high.

How do you know if a site has fallen under the wing of a penguin?

First, it's important to understand the difference between manual punishment for fake links and Penguin. In short, Penguin is usually a Google index filter that is applied to all sites. In contrast, manual punishment always refers to a single site that Google has identified as spamming.

Manual penalties may be due to Google users reporting spam on the site. It also assumes that Google can manually track some industries (eg, payday loans) more than others (eg, patty bakeries).

If the analytics on your website show a drop in rankings or traffic on the days that the Penguin update happened, it probably affected you more than other websites. Make sure you exclude fluctuations in traffic expected due to phenomena such as seasonality (for example, fluctuations in cryptocurrencies in April). Also, carefully consider whether your link building practices or keyword optimization might be considered spam by Google. This can leave your site vulnerable to updates like Penguin.

How to recover from Penguin?

With a manual link penalty, you have to submit a Google reconsideration request after you've cleaned up your site. You do not have to make such a request if you want Google to remove the punishment from Penguin. Instead, when you take action to fix problems, you tend to get "forgiveness" the next time Googlebot crawls your website.
These recovery steps include the following:

1. Removing any unnatural links that you control. This includes links you create yourself or links you manage to place on third-party sites.
2. Reject spam links that you have no control over.
3. Reviewing your website content to eliminate over-optimization. Make sure the keywords are implemented in a natural way and not robotic, meaningless or repetitive on web pages where there is no connection between the keywords used and the topic.

Google created Penguin to fix a critical weakness in its system. Prior to this, the algorithm could be fooled by a large number of low-quality links, as well as over-optimization of web page keywords. Don't let Google devalue your site because of spam. Always post content that reflects natural language. In addition, your earnings and link building should be considered "safe".

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