After a near two year gap, Google has finally announced that the Penguin algorithm has been updated. The update, the fourth major release is the last of its type, with Google revealing that Penguin is now a real-time signal processed within its core search algorithm.
Google Penguin 3.0 – October 2014
For those of you not in the know Google Penguin is a filter designed to capture websites that are spamming their way to the higher regions of the search results using methods that other algorithms may not detect. Since its initial launch in 2012, it has been updated very sporadically.
This meant that if a website had fallen victim to the clutches of the Penguin algorithm, even after cleaning up its act it would remain penalized until the next update. The last update happened on October 17 2014, meaning any websites that had been impacted by Peguin 3.0 would have been waiting since then!
The Real Time Penguin
Those long delays are now a thing of the past with Penguin going real time. As Google re-crawls, re-indexes ad re-evaluates pages constantly, websites will have the opportunity to regain a good standing with Google much sooner.
With the announcement Google said “With this change, Penguin’s data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after we re-crawl and re-index a page”.
A More Granular Penguin
Another interesting snippet from Google’s post was that Penguin is now more granular. Previously if a website was hit by Penguin, it would be an issue sitewide. While full confirmation has yet to be announced, it would appear as though it is likely that only the certain offending areas or pages of a website could be impacted.
No More Announcements
As Penguin is now real time and part of the core algorithm, Google stated that there will be no more announcements of refreshes – which makes sense.
While we haven’t been frantically waiting for this announcement, it is sure to please many website owners.
If you believe that you have been impacted by the Penguin, or any other Google Algorithms, talk to us – we’d love to help
Read Google’s Post here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/09/penguin-is-now-part-of-our-core.html
