Google Penguin 3.0: Worldwide Rollout Still In Process, Impacting 1% Of English Queries

Google updated their Penguin algorithm with version Penguin 3.0 late Friday night. The Penguin algorithm primarily looks at a site’s backlink profile and may demote a site that appears to have a poor backlink profile.
The Penguin 3.0 release was communicated very poorly by Google. With Google only confirming the update 24-hours after the update was release and not giving us the details they would typically give when we ask them. But this morning at 3:50am EDT, Google’s Pierre Far shared more details on Google+.
Here is the summary:
(1) This is a worldwide update, impacting all versions of Google
(2) The rollout is not complete yet, it will continue for the “next few weeks.”
(3) It impacts less than 1% of English queries but may impact other languages more or less
(4) Google confirmed the roll out began on Friday
(5) Pierre Far specifically called this a “refresh”
(6) It should demote sites with bad link profiles and help sites that were previously hit that cleaned up their link profiles

Worldwide Penguin Rollout

Unlike some of Google’s other algorithm updates, such as the Panda algorithm, the Penguin update typically launches globally. So sites in any language, any region, are all open to the potential impact of this algorithm.
Why? Since Penguin is mostly about link profiles, language doesn’t really need to be looked at by the algorithm. Panda looks more at content and language, thus those algorithms roll out different by region or language. Penguin doesn’t need to worry about language, for the most part.

Penguin Still Rolling Out

There was some confusion if the Penguin refresh was done rolling out or not. SEOs were wondering why not all sites were impacted yet, they felt the roll out was halted or not complete. But yesterday Google’s John Mueller felt it was complete but then retracted that a few hours later. Pierre Far this morning said the roll out is not complete and will likely last for a “few weeks.”
So when analyzing if a site was impacted, it may be hard to nail down the issue to Penguin or another algorithm, since this is a multi-week roll out.

Penguin 3.0 Impacts Less Than 1% Of English Search Queries

When gauging how large an update was and how much of the webmaster community felt it, Google sometimes tells us how significant it was by measuring the percentage of queries impacted.
Penguin 1.0 impacted ~3.1% of queries, 1.1 was 0.1% and 1.2 was 0.3% of queries. Then 2.0 was 2.3% of queries and 2.1 was about 1%. Penguin 3.0, which some may argue is 2.2 and not 3.0, impacted less than 1% of queries.
Now, it may be higher in other languages, but Google’s measurement was English queries.

Penguin 3.0 Launched Friday

Google confirmed that Penguin 3.0 launched Friday, October 17, 2014. Keep in mind, the rollout will continue for a few weeks as we said above.

Penguin 3.0 – A Refresh

Google’s Pierre Far called this update a “refresh,” he didn’t mention that any new signals were added or the algorithm was changed in any way. A refresh in Google’s terminology around algorithms means they just re-ran the algorithm to release sites that fixed their issues and demote sites that had issues they didn’t pick up on. They did not add any new signals to the algorithm to find Penguin related sites, it was just a refresh.
Just a refresh even after waiting over a year? Indeed and this is pretty shocking to most of those in the SEO industry. Many expected a refresh could have happened way earlier and that Google was laying the ground work for a new Penguin algorithm.
Again, this is why some want to rename this update to Penguin 2.2 versus 3.0.

Helps Some Sites & Hurts Other Sites

Like any algorithm refresh, some sites that were previously hit would see a ranking increase because they are no longer negatively impacted by the algorithm. While other sites may see a ranking drop in the search results because they were just picked up as sites that should be impacted by the Penguin algorithm

Google Launches Panda 4.0

Panda 4.0 has officially hit the Google search results.

The Panda algorithm, which was designed to help boost great-quality content sites while pushing down thin or low-quality content sites in the search results, has always targeted scraper sites and low-quality content sites in order to provide searchers with the best search results possible.

Panda 4.0, which Google and Matt Cutts confirmed began rolling out yesterday, has definitely caused some waves in the search results. However, the fact that Panda 4.0 is also hitting at the same time as a refresh of an algorithm targeting spammy queries like payday loans makes it a little bit more difficult for webmasters to sort through the damage.

With the payday loans refresh impacting extremely spammy queries and Panda targeting low-quality content, some webmasters could potentially get hit with both of these or by just one or the other.

While usually people complain about losing rankings, Alan Bleiweiss from AlanBleiweiss.comshowed via Twitter that Panda can also bring about some serious improvement to a site's traffic as well.

Prior to Cutts confirming via Twitter that Panda 4.0 hit, there had been plenty of speculation about a change with either Panda or Penguin, although many found it hard to pin down exactly what the change was.

"It was interesting to see the chatter amongst SEOs over the last few days," says Marie Haynesof HIS Web Marketing. "We all knew that something was going on, but there was significant disagreement on exactly what Google was doing. Most of the black hats were saying that it was related to Penguin because they were noticing huge drops in their sites with the spammiest link profiles."

This would have been the changes to the payday loans update, where the goal is to target the spammiest search queries Google sees. There was also plenty of debate on forums and Twitter about whether the shake-up we saw was Panda-related or Penguin-related. And with the payday loans update thrown in there for good measure, it was definitely confusing.

"I was really hoping that this wasn't a Penguin refresh because the majority of the sites that I had done link cleanup on were not seeing any improvement and if Penguin refreshed and none of my clients were seeing ranking increases, then that would not be good," Haynes says. "I was also puzzled because one site that I monitor that has been adversely affected by several Panda updates saw a vast improvement today. It does not have a bad link profile and would not have been affected by a Penguin update. "

"When I heard the announcements that Google had released two algorithms over the last couple of days – payday loans and also a big Panda update, everything made sense. And still, so many of us are waiting for that big Penguin refresh. It wouldn't surprise me if that happens in the next couple of days," she says.

Google has said previously that they try not to throw multiple updates at once or within a very short period of time, so it is interesting that they pushed out two completely unrelated updates – although updates that could both impact some the same sites – within a couple of days.

Releasing two back-to-back updates makes it a lot harder for webmasters to analyze the changes and what specifically was targeted in these updates, and could affect Google's ability to evaluate how well (or not) the two updates worked. It also means webmasters might have a challenge knowing what changes need to be made in order to recover search rankings.

However, Haynes speculated that some of the Panda change might have been to reverse some of the damage done to sites that had great content yet were impacted for other on-page reasons.

"I think it's too early to say what this new iteration of Panda is affecting, but I can tell you that in the case of the site that I saw big improvements on, no cleanup work had been done at all," Haynes says. "It was always in 'Panda flux.'"

She says some Panda refreshes would hit it hard and then occasionally the site would show a slight increase with a refresh.

"This is by far the biggest increase, though," Haynes says. "It really is a good-quality site and I believe that what caused it to be affected by Panda in the first place was a site layout that caused crawlers to get confused. Underneath that confusing layout is a site full of really good content. It may be that Google found ways to see past structural issues and recognize the good content as the structural problems would not affect users, just crawlers. But really, that's a guess."

Panda first blazed onto the scene in February 2011, and was believed to be Google's response to criticism of how well content farms were ranking. Google later announced that they internally called it the big Panda update, after Navneet Panda, the Google engineer who created it.

While there have been many smaller Panda updates and a couple larger ones, each rolled out monthly over a period of 10 days, Google had announced several months ago that Panda would be integrated into the algorithm updates and that the "softer" Panda would be less noticeable. However, that clearly isn't the case with Panda 4.0, which has had a widespread impact, both positively and negatively.

Dr. Pete Meyers from Moz also studied the changes they saw from the latest Panda update, and noticed that eBay got hit particularly hard.

Digging into the May 19th data (and before Google confirmed anything), I noticed that a few keywords seemed to show losses for eBay, and the main eBay sub-domain fell completely out of the "Big 10" (our metric of the ten domains with the most "real estate" in the top 10).

In fact, Meyers notes that eBay's drop was so significant that it dropped from 1 percent of their queries to 0.28 percent. It won't be surprising to hear of more sites who have seen a drop due to Panda 4.0 – especially sites that have been notorious for having low quality content.

We will definitely see more come out in the next few days as webmasters and SEO professionals have a chance to evaluate the changes and what might have caused sites (either their own or competitors) to either rise or fall in Google's search results. And since we're still awaiting a Google Penguin update (Penguin 2.0 launched a year ago this week), I wouldn't be surprised if we see one of those updates coming soon, especially in light of Google releasing both the payday loans and Panda 4.0 so close together.

May 21'2014 #SEW

SEO vs. SEM Timelines: A Medical Analogy

Marketing directors and search engine optimization (SEO) consultants are often questioned by their bosses and clients about the progress of their SEO campaigns. Most business owners don't understand how SEO works and, quite frankly, could care less.

Nonetheless, they know it's important and just want to see results. Unless you're ingrained into an industry or market, it's tough to comprehend how effective certain strategies are and when those results can realistically be expected.

As an SEO consultant, you might have been posed with questions similar to one of these:

“Now that we turned on the SEO, we should be on the first page, right?”

Or:

“If I pay you overtime, can you work on my SEO over the weekend so we can rank by Monday?”

So how do you explain to your boss or client how SEO works and when to expect results? My office uses doctors and medication as an analogy and it seems to get the message across.

SEO = Antibiotics

SEO is a long-term tactic that requires a solid foundation and consistency over time. When you get sick or have an infection, antibiotics aren't going to provide instant relief. As you begin to take the antibiotics, it may seem as if nothing is happening, but you must believe in what the doctor suggests and take the medication as prescribed.

The doctor might ask you to follow up in a week or so to see if anything has changed (reviewing ranking reports). It is common to find out that nothing has changed and a new medication needs to be prescribed. Doctors and SEO experts don't have exact answers and must test different strategies to see what works and make adjustments when necessary.

The frustrating part is when the doctor (or SEO expert) finds out that the medication wasn't taken as prescribed. The inconsistency throws everything off and makes it difficult to determine if the prescription (or strategy) was really working.

Consistency is very important for the success of your SEO campaign. It's not something you should "turn on and off."

It should also be noted that you can't simply prescribe more antibiotics (or spend more money) to speed things up. SEO simply doesn't work that way.

Imagine taking three times the antibiotics the doctor prescribed. You will make yourself even more sick.

SEM = Pain Meds

Search engine marketing (SEM), or paid search advertising, can satisfy the demand for instant gratification.

Let's say you are in the doctor's office for an ear infection. The pain is unbearable and you need relief.

The doctor will most likely prescribe you some sort of pain meds or even give you a shot. You will get temporary relief, however, you will find yourself returning to those meds every time you start to ache again.

Imagine paid advertising as those meds providing relief when you're taking them, but when you stop, you're back where you started – or in even more pain. You can get the phone to ring when you're actively paying for ads, but as soon as you stop paying, your phone stops ringing.

What Will the Doctor Order?

A good doctor will understand that you have immediate needs and care about your long-term health. He or she will likely prescribe the pain meds for instant relief and put you on a regimen of antibiotics to address the root of the problem. You might notice that your pain medication prescription will run out long before your antibiotic prescription.

The following graph shows how your pain meds (SEM) can be weaned down as your antibiotics (SEO) begin to take affect.

Using this analogy, or a similar one, should help your boss or client realize the time and effort it takes to run a successful organic SEO campaign and help you avoid being inundated with questions every few days.