Google Penguin helps fight Spam
Has your website dropped in the page rankings recently – the possible cause could be due to Google’s latest algorithm, known as “Google Penguin”. In an attempt to reduce spam “Google Penguin” discourages paid and low quality website links. The theory is that the old algorithm gave certain websites a much higher search ranking than they deserved, because those sites were stuffed with keywords which manipulated the search engine. If your website has suddenly dropped in site traffic or SERP since the end of March, “Google Penguin” is likely to be the cause.
The most common reasons for the drop in ranking are:
- Hidden text & links
- Cloaked redirects
- Automated page rank queries to Google
- Pages loaded with irrelevant keywords
- Duplicated content on multiple pages or domains
- Use of gateway / landing pages created just for search engines
Recovering from “Google Penguin” can be tough, but there are some simple things you can do to improve your ranking / SERP. Firstly pop over to Google and read their official Quality Guidelines. Once you are certain you are not using any of the “black hat methods” start reviewing your site contents and make sure it adds value to your site visitors.
About the Post Author
Jayson Gurney, Managing Director of the Social Media Consultancy Limited. After leaving Her Majesty's Armed Services in 1993, I embarked on an Career in Information Technology which took me all over the UK and Europe. More recently I have been passionately involved with helping small business owners embrace Social Media to help promote their businesses, products and services. Hobbies & out-of-work activities include Fishing and Kamishin Ryu Karate.
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Jayson, an informative article as usual!
It was interesting reading about the key words issue. One website I viewed recently seemed just to be full of them, so much so it made little or no sense. You could not really tell what service the business was offering compared to what services might have been generally available in the area from other businesses. It was hard even to decipher what they were claiming to be. Every page of their website seemed to be aimed at search engines rather than human brains.
Hopefully this new algorithm will help people who actually put informative information on their website float to the top of google.
Hi Clive, many thanks for the recent comment regarding the recent Google Penguin algorithm change that has affected 1000′s of un-suspected business owners. You are totally right – this new update will mean the website owners who invest time, blood and sweat into their website and blog posts will start to see an increase in their site traffic and in their SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position). Regards Jayson
Good heads up on the issues. Google have to keep upping their game here simply to survive, and that’s exactly what’s happening. They have to show folks who are searching the best possible info and most relevant results, not just the results from the people who’ve done the most ‘SEO’, otherwise people will gradually start finding the best websites some other way.
Obviously there are things you can do to help Google understand and find your pages but genuinely useful content, linked from genuinely relevant places is really key.