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Google Penguin Algorithm update guide

Google announced a significant update to its search engine algorithm in the second quarter of 2012.  It was on April 24, 2012, that the announcement of Google Penguin came about to the public.  Google had big plans for this particular update.  The goal was to try to knock down sites in the rankings that had unnatural backlink profiles, as well as builds that were merely over optimised, trying to take advantage of search engine optimisation tactics.

Though full domains were not hit as a result of the Google Penguin update, specific keywords and specific pages indeed were.  It took some years for Google to continue to update and roll out Penguin across its core search engine.  It did not roll out entirely until September 2016, more than four years after Penguin was initially announced.  Today, Google Penguin is a real-time element within the search engine.

The Main Areas Hit By Google Penguin

So what exactly was the primary target for Google Penguin?  Penguin was aimed at going after sites that had too many instances of the same exact anchor text.  This was a common tactic used by search engine optimisation professionals to try and increase ranking results, but with Penguin, the tactic was history.

The result here was that you had to diversify a lot more with anchor text that was utilized across a particular domain.

How Sites Built Up After Penguin

Sites began to take a very methodical approach after Google Penguin was released.  It started with the effort of doing an entire review of your full link graph.  The idea here was to figure out where your site stands regarding keywords.  Why was your particular site impacted so much?  Were things over optimized in a specific area?  This type of review would uncover these instances.

If you found links with anchor text that was the same, sites began to change things up.  Using language that was much more natural rather than keyword stuffing was the way to go.

When you analysed your site, what many found was that there were low-quality links everywhere.  A delinking effort was then made to get rid of these low-quality links and improve rankings as a result.  If you were not able to get rid of the links, what many did was to use the Google Webmaster Tools and disavow the links.

In an extreme circumstance, what many had to do was to abandon their domain only.  They took everything and moved it over to a new domain, or subdomain, and began to rebuild once again.

The Google Penguin update made a long-lasting impact on search engine optimisation professionals.  It was April of 2012 when the update was announced, and websites had to begin to take notice.  To this day, the impact of Google Penguin continues to be felt, and the need to adapt persists.

The Answer

What we have found at Managed SEO is when we have an over use of inbound anchor texts we use our Press Release package to throw 100 – 300 backlinks from world wide news sites into the site in question to water down the inbound anchor text percentages whilst building a tiny bit of domain authority as well!

Our Backlinking Packages will also do this whilst building more domain authority as well.