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Google have recently confirmed that the Penguin 4.0 algorithm is now live across all countries and languages. Over the past decade, Google have demonstrated their commitment to improving the quality of web content (while also increasing website owners’ reliance on paid Google channels… a story for another day).
Like other recent updates, Penguin 4.0 has some key components designed to discourage web-spam and reward compelling content. Today I’m going to outline what we know about the key changes contained in Penguin 4.0 and discuss how they may benefit your website and your business.
Penguin 4.0 symbolises a major progression in Google’s algorithm because it is the first time that website changes will affect search rankings in real-time. Let me explain what this means for you as a website owner.
Before Penguin 4.0: Let’s say that your website hasn’t been performing well in search results since the previous Google Penguin update (October 2014). You decide to partner with a digital marketing agency like Apex to improve your online presence or you set about learning all you can about Google Penguin recoveries and get busy making improvements on your own. Then you wait and hope that Google releases an update to their algorithm in order to re-evaluate your website. In this case you would have been waiting for almost two years for an update to come through (Penguin 4.0 rolled out in September 2016), leaving you floundering in Google’s organic search results until the algorithm update rolled out.
Now with Penguin 4.0: Your site isn’t performing well due to it having a dubious backlink profile (think low quality/high volume backlinks from off-topic websites). You or your digital marketing agency carry out an audit and make various improvements (such as cleaning up your website’s backlink profile) in an effort to improve your website’s visibility in the organic search results. If they are successful, you will quickly see an improvement in your search rankings because as of Penguin 4.0, Google now offers real-time recovery.
Penguin 4.0 is what many website owners have been waiting for. It’s a game changer in terms of potentially being able to recover from an issue that is negatively affecting your search rankings. Previously a site impacted by Google’s Penguin algorithm would have to wait months or even years to see if their clean-up efforts were successful. Now updates occur as part of the core algorithm, meaning that a web page’s ranking will be re-evaluated whenever Google re-crawls and reindexes that page.
Another key aspect of Penguin 4.0 is that it offers a more granular approach to penalising a site than it has in the past. Google have confirmed that ‘Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.’ This means that a web-spam signal found in one area of a website won’t necessarily contribute to the entire site being penalised. Whereas previously a Google Penguin filter affected the entire domain, now Google may instead only penalise parts of it, such as a sub-directory, a group of keywords, or a page.
Google confirmed the rollout of Penguin 4.0 on the 23rd of September, so you can safely assume that your website has been evaluated by the release already. It may, however, be a bit tricky to determine exactly how Penguin 4.0 has affected your website due to the abovementioned granularity. Plus, if you hadn’t previously fallen foul of Penguin 3.0 or any of its predecessors, then you may not have noticed any significant shifts at all.
If you were negatively impacted by Penguin 3.0 two years ago and have made changes to address web-spam issues on your website, then you should be able to see improvements by this point. If you were previously impacted by Google Penguin but aren’t seeing any improvement in organic visibility, then it’s possible that you have not adequately addressed your website’s backlink issues, or you’re simply ranking where you deserve to rank based on the quality and quantity of legitimate backlinks your website does have.
If you have any concerns about how your site is performing, then get in touch with the digital marketing team at Apex. After we perform a detailed audit on your website we can determine how to fix any issues and improve your website’s ability to attract traffic and convert visitors to customers. So, what are you waiting for? If you want to improve your website’s visibility and bring in more business, give us a buzz.
Written by Mark Vassiliou
Mark is the Manager of Digital Marketing at Apex and has worked in the digital marketing industry since 2004. Prior to joining Apex he worked in a variety of traditional marketing roles in both the corporate and SME environment in NZ and abroad, but these days much prefers the tangible measurability and transparency of digital marketing.We aim to respond to all messages within 1 business day. You'll be hearing from us soon!
In the meantime, perhaps you'd like to learn more...