Hunger justifies the Penguin

We explain THE REAL HISTORY

In 2012, Google’s search result pages experienced a true earthquake with the arrival of the Penguin algorithmic filter. The hunt for abusive external links began, and many sites found themselves suddenly demoted in the SERPs, or even completely ejected from Google’s index. It was a cold shower for site owners and SEOs, who had to face a new wave of penalties just a few months after the implementation of Google Panda…

What were Google’s objectives when implementing Penguin?

External links are an integral part of Google’s algorithm for ranking websites on its search engine pages. The problem? Abusive netlinking strategies emerged, distorting the hierarchy of sites at the top of the results in the process.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Google sent its army of penguins to clean up the SERPs.

Google Penguin: What is it?

Google Penguin is an algorithmic filter primarily capable of identifying fake external links intended to manipulate search results. Google’s goal has always been clear: to offer the best possible experience to its users while facilitating access to quality information. This new facet of the algorithm follows that path by penalizing sites that use spammy or Black Hat techniques.

An algorithm deployment in 7 phases:

April 2012: Matt Cutts confirms the rollout of version 1. Impact of 3 to 5%.
May 2012: Penguin 1.1 update.
October 2012: Penguin 1.2 and launch of the Disavow Tool.
May 2013: Penguin 2.0. More than 2% of queries affected.
October 2013: Version 2.1, approximately 1% of queries hit.
October 2014: Improvement with Penguin 3.0.
September 2016: Final integration into the real-time algorithm.

The Attack of the Penguins: Consequences for Organic Search (SEO)

During this period, SEO underwent unparalleled changes. Many netlinking techniques are now severely punished, and a long road lies ahead for affected sites to recover from penalties; SEO professionals must rethink their strategies as a matter of urgency.

Netlinking practices penalized by Penguin

1. Abusive links: Private Blog Networks (PBNs), low-quality directories, and “Spamco” (blog comment spam) are now being tracked.

2. Over-optimized anchors: The abuse of exact-match keywords in links pointing to your site is detected as artificial.

3. Thematic inconsistency: Receiving links from sites that have nothing to do with your topic is considered suspicious.

Heavy consequences for affected sites

Impacted sites saw their visibility collapse. To recover from a penalty, it is essential to clean up your link profile via Search Console and, in the case of a manual action, submit a rigorous reconsideration request.