Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Every organization wants their website to be in top three pages of search engine results. Visitors often go through only the first three pages of search results, so it is important for websites to rank within these three pages.
Google uses proprietary and sophisticated algorithms for ranking websites. Search engine optimization (SEO) service providers use various techniques to get search engine rankings for websites. Some of them also use unethical practices also known as black hat SEO techniques. Google keeps on frequently changing its search algorithms, these changes are known as a Google update.
The latest Google Update – Penguin
The Google Penguin update was brought into effect by Google on 24th April 2012. According to Google, the Penguin update will minimize spamming in search engine page results. The Penguin update will cause noticeable change in search results. According to Google, the Penguin update affects about 3% of search queries in languages like Chinese, German, Arabic and 3.1 % of search queries in English.
This latest Google update aims at decreasing search engine rankings of websites which uses black hat SEO tricks such as participating in link schemes, keyword stuffing and cloaking. It also aims at reducing rankings for websites which use over optimization techniques.
Google said in their blog that “this new Google update is designed to reduce web spam and promote high quality content. This update will not hamper sites which follow the Webmaster Guidelines of Google.” This Google update has spread a lot of panic among Search Engine Optimizers around the world, as many sites have lost more than half of their traffic since this update on April 24th.
Websites with irrelevant inbound links will lose rankings
We should have some inbound links from other websites, but only on articles which are relevant to articles on our website. Websites which have their links in irrelevant topics on other websites will be penalized by the penguin update.
We should never put our website’s link in link farms or any other portal which offer free SEO tricks. As Google might consider links on these farms as spam links and blacklist our website. We should avoid using many outbound links from a single page. Google spiders might mark our website as a link farm and penalize it.
Over Optimization can lead to reduced rankings
Google aims to penalize websites which are using too much optimization to get better rankings. So make sure that your SEO service provider is not over doing it and using black hat SEO tricks.
Keyword stuffing will be considered as spam
Putting too many keywords on your webpage will harm your website’s ranking instead of improving it. It is advised to use keywords relevant to our content only.
Google spiders will recognize if your content is original or copied
One should always use original content and avoid a “copy- paste” job, except for any third party statistical data which needs to be mentioned in our article with proper source mentioned and linked. Google spiders might consider copied articles as spam.
This Google update will not affect your website if you follow Google’s guidelines. You should not use over optimization techniques or Black hat SEO techniques to improve your search engine rankings. You should not put your links in irrelevant articles on other websites. You should create original content to attract more visitors. Avoid these SEO practices and Google Penguin should not penalize your website in any way.
June 12, 2012 at 2:09 AM
Hey Lloyd, certainly looks that way, this is an interesting read: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/recovering-from-the-penguin-update-a-true-story
June 10, 2012 at 8:05 PM
Cheers Lloyd, it’s been a tough couple of months.
I think domain age and existing rank and reputation also play a large factor in how a site is affected by “bad links” and any less than white hat techniques.
I imagine that existing, well established sites will be protected, to some degree at least, by negative SEO, but a new site that starts to do well in the rankings could then be targeted pretty easily.
A few hundred, or thousand spammy backlinks would cost very little, and an establisehed competitor could blast the new site and all of a sudden a large percentage of their links would be poor quality, leaving it wide open for a slap from the penguin.
I’ve also read that sites shouldn’t be over optimised, of course keyword stuffing and the like was always a bad idea, but surely having relevant titles and urls that contain keywords is still sensible?
Small ecommerce sites are probably hardest hit by the penguin, thin, repetitive content is hard to avoid on a site that sells limited products and don’t require lengthy descriptions.
I suppose we all have to adjust our SEO techniques to please the penguin, in the past I would always drop a few relevant keywords into a post such as this, which I think is perfectly reasonable if someone has taken time to write a relevant and original post, however now I’m worried about placing non-relevant backlinks and what could be regarded as spammy backlinks.
Maybe I’m just getting paranoid?
It will be interesting to see how my latest site progresses, if nothing else it will be an experiment!
Johnnie Walker
June 11, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Well my understanding is that Penguin is really targeting Anchor Text that is not related to your niche (Spamming links). So I would be careful with using backlinks that aren’t related to your niche specifically. For example I wouldn’t write a post about Blogging and have an anchor text link from a weight loss site. Having relevant titles and URLs that contain your keywords is fine by my understanding. I just think we really are just going to have to be extra careful when we post new content, making sure its original, not over optimized and the anchor text is niche related.
Cheers
Lloyd
June 9, 2012 at 6:35 PM
Hi Lloyd, well I had a nice little niche site which was starting to do really well and was getting great rankings.
Unfortunately, due to the domain name I’d chosen I was “requested” to cease using the domain/site immediately, I couldn’t even setup a redirect.
This meant I had to create a brand new site and was desperate for exposure and sales, so as well as optimising my on site SEO as much as I could, I also paid for links from less than ideal sources.
Initially this helped my rankings, however after several weeks I noticed I was no longer ranking well, in fact I was nowhere to be seen!
Then, just when I’ve got that to deal with I get an email from PayPal asking for proof of PCI compliance, because I pay extra for my PayPal website payments pro account, which allows me to accept card payments on my site, I have to be PCI certified!
I’ve just created another new site, I won’t be buying any ‘black hat’ links and in now using a hosted solution which is PCI compliant for my ecommerce site as then I won’t have to go through the compliance procedure.
Selling online is getting so complicated now, for the small business trying to survive it feels like everything is against you.
If it wasn’t for my passion for the web I’d probably given up by now!
June 9, 2012 at 8:13 PM
Jeez quite the experience you have had there Johnnie. But don’t feel bad, you definitely aren’t the only one who has been hit hard by Google’s latest updates and you won’t be the last either. Running an online businesses is tougher than many people may think and we have to abide by Google’s rules whether we like it or not. “Black Hat” links seem to have been at the top of Google’s hit list with the last couple of updates (Panda and Penguin). Thanks so much for sharing your experience hopefully this time round you don’t have to many hassles
Cheers
Lloyd
June 8, 2012 at 11:26 PM
All great advice, I’ve learnt the hard way that trying to get too many links too quickly can be devastating do your websites ranking.
I don’t know how google will prevent negative SEO, it would be pretty easy to create thousands of spammy links to a competitors website and possibly harm their rankings.
A few great quality backlinks are better than hundreds of poor quality ones, the problem is finding ways to get these links without spending lots of money.
June 9, 2012 at 8:14 AM
Hi Johnnie
I think a few people are in the same boat as you in that they have also been affected by Google in some way. The funny thing is we think we know everything about Google and what their updates are capable of, then they come out and surprise us. I definitely agree with you in getting highly quality backlinks over lots of poor quantity links, as this is one of the proven ways to improve rankings and not annoy Google. What exactly happened to you when you got hit by Google?