In September, Google announced Penguin would be updated in real time. Introduced over four years ago, the Penguin search algorithm updates have been Google’s tactic for fighting webspam — things like, keyword stuffing, cloaking redirects, duplicate content and link schemes.
Penalizing websites for spammy link schemes has become the primary focus of many SEO’s and webmasters who must either remove poor quality backlinks or disavow using Google Search Console. Before September, we could disavow spammy links, but we didn’t know when, or if, Google would reward us (and our site’s SERP’s) with more authority for doing so.
Consider a website audit. Know how much SEO affects your performance.
Mixed Results
Since Penguin began evaluating websites and updating in real time, some SEO’s and webmasters expected to see improvement to their SERP’s quickly. Many are reporting no change at all while others are seeing significant gains. Meanwhile, others are experiencing negative results.
What’s next if your site didn’t recover from Penguin? Many SEO’s theorize high quality sites not recovering is a result of too many spammy links pointing to their site for too long. In other words, the site’s authority and trust have been diminished and may be beyond repair. This may be the case, but it’s impossible to determine with any certainty.
The Real Issue
In the word’s of MOZ’s Dr Pete: “Your problem was never Penguin.” It’s more likely your website suffers from any number of technical issues. We’ve found many of those webmasters and SEO’s who relied primarily on link schemes were remiss with regards to technical SEO.
Remain diligent and audit your website on a regular basis. Feel free to use periscopeUP’s checklist or simply go to Google and search “SEO audit checklist.” You’ll find a number of helpful resources to get back on track to have an authoritative website rewarded by the search engines.
For reference, here are the links in order:
