Why? Because when Google’s algorithm changes, it can have a major effect on how high a site ranks in a search. This means that a website that was ranking really well before the change can suddenly take a nose-dive and end up far lower in search results.

So what does all this have to do with a penguin?

As explained in our SEO 101 post, Google’s software uses tools called spiders to help ‘crawl’ website content, looking for information to bring back about sites they visit.  When spiders visit web pages, they’re looking for many things including the words used on pages, how relevant they feel a site is for a particular topic, how many links a site has and how relevant those links are. All this information is used to get sites listed in rankings.

Unfortunately, sometimes businesses use bad tactics – or ‘black-hat’ techniques – to try viagra online to get on the first page of search results. In 2012, Google released an algorithm update known as Penguin, the goal of which was to penalise sites that used black-hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, duplicate content, and linking to irrelevant sites (also known as “link spam”).

Google estimated that this change only affected about 3.1% of English language search queries, but some webmasters saw a major drop in their sites’ rankings. Now, in their continuing battle to penalise ‘black-hatters’, Google has announced that another algorithm change is coming in the next few weeks: Penguin 2.0.

Though no one outside Google knows just what to expect, there’s pretty clear evidence that sites with a high number of bad links, or link spam, will be targeted, and those sites will drop in overall search rankings.

What can you do?

First of all, don’t panic. If you’re currently using proper white-hat SEO techniques such as creating valuable, original site content for your customers and linking to legitimate sites that are relevant to your business products and services, you shouldn’t have any problem when Penguin 2.0 is released.

However, SEO is clearly becoming increasingly complex.  If you haven’t already, consider outsourcing your SEO activities to a reputable SEO provider.  Asking them how Penguin has changed their SEO practices is a good place to start in sussing out their expertise.  If they don’t know what you’re talking about then they may not be the right people to help you with your SEO.

For more on Penguin and link building, check out this article from Searchenginewatch.com.  What’s also really interesting is all the commentary at the end of the article – there’s clearly a lot of confusion out there right now about SEO and what these Penguin updates mean.

Have more questions about all of this? Need some help? Let us know – and stay tuned for future posts on SEO when Penguin 2.0 gets released!