What You Need to Know About Penguin

Penguin isn't just the species of a chilly-weather bird. It is now the name of a recent Google algorithm update that is wreaking havoc on the SEO and marketing communities. This algorithm update has dramatically changed which website factors elevate a site's search engine rankings. So, how does the Penguin update affect you? That depends on your approach to SEO.

Penguin Wasn't Created to Frustrate You

It's important to understand that the Penguin update was not created to frustrate web designers and SEO specialists. It was simply created to refine the algorithm and reward those websites that are devoting hours of time and energy to creating helpful, useful websites. Penguin takes the algorithm into the realm of consumer value. If a consumer can benefit from your website, your site will likely do very well with the Penguin algorithm update.

Penguin Can Change Your Website Performance

Regardless of how diligent you have been in implementing White Hat SEO strategies such as high quality content, earning links, and creating multiple web pages that link to one another and guide consumers through a high quality conversion funnel, Penguin may be picking up some old SEO strategies and punishing your website because of those strategies. This is why it is so important for all business owners to evaluate their website performance data and identify problems. Even if you have committed to focusing on consumers rather than search engine bots, there still may be issues that Penguin is having problems with.

One such example may be pages of your website that lead to nowhere. If you recently redesigned your business's website, there may be links to pages that no longer exist. If Google crawls your site and stumbles upon these empty web pages, your site may be penalized. If you notice that your site ranking has decreased dramatically since the release of Penguin, it's a good idea to evaluate the algorithm updates and determine what is going wrong. Another common problem with Penguin is the existence of bad links that are still directing consumers to your website. If other websites are linking to your site with anchor text that is stuffed with keywords, your site may be penalized. Even if you are not responsible for these links, your site can suffer. If this happens, you need to contact the individuals who are hosting the linking website and ask that the links to your site be removed. If you can't get the links removed, you should contact Google directly to know you have attempted and failed to resolve the problem.

Penguin has caused a lot of headaches for marketers who were trying to take the back alley route to search engine optimization. Additional algorithm updates will likely go one step further in making content marketing the best practice for search engine optimization. By jumping on the content marketing bandwagon now, you won't have to worry about future algorithm updates. Instead, you can create a long term SEO plan that focuses on the development of high quality, helpful content that satisfied your clients and customers.