Google recently released its new version of Penguin 2.1 on October 4, 2013. This release would make it the 5th release of Penguin. What does all of this information mean? 1% of the searches will be impacted. The interesting part about all of the Penguin updates is all of the previous releases of Penguin prior to the release of 2.1.
The History Of Google’s Penguin
Just where did this spam fighting algorithm come from and why so many updates? Let’s briefly go over when the releases happened and what was the impact of each.
- Penguin 1 was released on April 24, 2012. The impact of this release was around 3.1% of the queries. This version targeted keyword stuffing, link schemes, doorway pages, and duplicate content.
- Penguin 2 was released on May 26, 2012, but only impacted less that 0.1% of queries. This particular version was called a “data refresh” and the first update of the Penguin series.
- Penguin 3 was released on October 5, 2012 impacting approximately 0.3% of the queries. The update affected searches for multiple languages.
- Penguin 4 aka Penguin 2.0 was released on May 22, 2013. The impact of this version impacted 2.3% of the queries. 2.0 had a new twist that should stop all of the spam.
- Penguin 5 aka Penguin 2.1 was released on October 4, 2013 with a 1% impact. Second generation technology is being implemented to improve the issues with spam.
Google’s overall search algorithm is monitored by Penguin. If you are in a situation where you have noticed a drop in traffic, then it’s time to take a look at your site. Bad links and poor quality sites are going to be red flagged, therefore you will have to improve your site. Until Penguin sees the content is removed, you are going to have a problem. The best way to avoid this problem is to check your content and links.
