Will my site be affected?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What\u2019s Changed?<\/h3>\n
Until now, Google Penguin was an occasional batch process which periodically refreshed and changed the search results. This now happens in real time and will have a big impact on a decent number of sites, both positive and negative.<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s goal is to tackle the quick, short-term visibility that can sometimes be gained by Google guideline-breaking link building \u2013 link building that is black-hat, automated, or in some way artificial.<\/p>\n
We can expect Google to be faster and more effective at penalising those sites found to be in less salubrious link neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n
Sites with lots of low-quality links will see an immediate drop in the search results. The road to recovery involves disavowing those links from low-quality sources that you may have thought were doing you good. In their place, add real, unique content, and get your followers to engage with it. Once you\u2019ve done this, the good links will start coming in.<\/p>\n
Google haven\u2019t indicated that forgiveness for penalties (related to processing disavow files that disassociate a site from spammy links) will be processed in real-time. It\u2019s in their interest to let offenders stew a little before letting them back into the search results.<\/p>\n
The big takeaway here: if you haven\u2019t had a review of your site\u2019s link equity recently, don\u2019t leave it any later than now. Sites often have historic links built before the Penguin update that have long been forgotten but are still crawled and associated with the domains.<\/p>\n
New Changes for SEO<\/h3>\n
Penguin will be a permanent addition, so don\u2019t expect to see it in the headlines for much longer: it will simply operate continuously and develop further as patterns are recognised and spammers test new link-building methods.<\/p>\n
One of the core points of Google\u2019s announcement is that Penguin will now be more granular. According to the announcement:<\/p>\n
\u201cPenguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis is a little ambiguous, but it shows the level of sophistication Google has reached in understanding spam signals. Ultimately, there won\u2019t be many hiding places left for those still relying on these guideline-breaking link building practises.<\/p>\n
Lazy link builders will stop seeing the short-term benefits they once had.<\/p>\n
Agencies monitoring the results of website changes related to Google\u2019s Penguin update should start seeing any visibility impact as of now.<\/p>\n\n \n \n
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