Do we really need to be scared of Penguin 2.1? Before hand we go gaga over the Penguin saga, let us get the general idea of Penguin Concept in brief. Penguin is anti-spam search algorithm that basically looks for sites that are prone to spamming and even purchasing paid Links.
Google has always been focused to provide quality Search Engine Result Page (SERP), and over the time it has been changing its search algorithm time to time to eliminate web spamming. Previously, Google updated major and minor version of Penguin updates. Penguin, a spam fighting algorithm has been out on action with five different versions till now such as Penguin 1, Penguin 2, Penguin 3, Penguin 2.0 and latest Penguin 2.1 released on October 4, 2013.
To predict about the effect of Penguin 2.1 can be difficult but however it was presumed that it will likely to affect 1 % of searches. Previously, Penguin 2.0 affected 2.3 % of searches and went deeper in to the websites regarding unnatural linking and other spamming stuff.
But Penguin 2.1 seems to have bigger impacts on webmasters and search engine optimization communities. Many of the Webmasters witnessed a sudden decline in their Google analytics, some Google analytics were recovered greatly whereas some of the websites does not seems to have any impact after the Penguin 2.1 went on live. It is believed that newer generation of Penguin not just about home page and its title but every page of the websites and content’s usefulness and uniqueness.
Google has stated that the change will decrease rankings for sites that they believe are violating Google’s existing quality
guidelines. They have always targeted webspam in their rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in their efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content.
Moreover they have stated; “While we can’t divulge
specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics”.
Well, there is still many things left to witness what Penguin have installed for us, till then let’s say we would do SEO like good guys and forget getting caught up in Mugshots.