With Webmasters all over the world trying to recover from the fallout experienced by Penguin 2.0, the anticipation continues to build for the upcoming implementation of Penguin 3.0. During a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller was directly asked whether the latest update of Google’s Penguin algorithm would be rolled out shortly. Many webmasters affected by Penguin 2.0 are eagerly awaiting the release of the next generation Penguin to see whether their hard work will be rewarded with an increase in visibility within the dominate search engine. Unfortunately the response was not the one that affected webmasters wanted to hear, with Mueller stating that the latest update was not ready just yet.
Mueller continued to provide additional insight into the update by stating that Penguin 3.0 is more than just a basic “tweak” of the algorithm, elaborating on this point by stating Penguin requires a complete rerun and refresh of its data for the upcoming roll-out, with the objective of ensuring that they are using “right type of data” as part of the algorithm. Before the update goes live Google usually rolls out the refreshed algorithm in private to analyse the effect/improvements on the rankings, with Mueller stating that if they discover any issues with the algorithm they need to make amendments and test again until the results produced are satisfactory.
The last update to the Penguin algorithm was released on the 4th October 2013, over 10 months ago. The impact of this roll out can still be seen today as a large number of websites were penalised with a drop in rankings for falling foul of Googles ever changing guidelines. Many effected webmasters have worked tirelessly to clean up their back-link profile to conform to the standards laid out by the algorithm and are awaiting a refresh in the hope that their sites will see an increase in rankings through the changes they have made. This has been a bitter pill to swallow for many webmasters who worked hard to resolve issues a number of months ago with little to no tangible progress being made to date.
Many have questioned the time it has taken Google to develop the latest update, with many websites seeing little to no progress in relation to recovery of a site that has fallen foul of the algorithm. In-fact many businesses have had to re-brand and start again with new, clean domains in an attempt to re-build in a more ethical way. With Google being the dominate search engine in the UK the previous update has had a significant impact on the rankings of websites and the revenue generated online by many businesses. This has resulted in many businesses having to look at other ways of generating sales online rather than solely relying on organic listings within Google; with PPC an obvious quick fix solution for many businesses. This has led to many people questioning Google’s motive for not refreshing the algorithm sooner, is it solely to continue to see revenue generated from its AdWords platform grow? But it is worth considering that people use Google on a daily basis due to the quality of the results that it serves and any refresh of the algorithm can have an effect on overall user satisfaction of the product.
Many webmaster forums are awash with people reporting considerable, if not short lived, movement in relation to both organic traffic and rankings within Google over the past 7 – 10 days. Additionally many of the top SEO tracking tools suggesting that changes are being implemented to the algorithm, including Mozcast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo. Plus, the forums are continuing with their chatter. Could we soon see the Penguin run free once more?
