The 7 Implications of Penguin 4.0

Sam Underwood 7 years ago

As we're sure everyone in the search space is aware, Google finally released its long awaited Penguin 4.0 algorithm on September 23 - the first time the algorithm has been updated since way back in October 2014! Unfortunately, for some sites this has meant a loss of revenue for many years now, especially for those that didn’t disavow in time before that last release back in 2014.

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We've been holding off on speaking too much about the major algorithm update until we had at least seen a bit of impact from it in the UK. Finally, more than a week after the announcement we saw some major movement, so it’s time for a few case studies as well as an overview of what makes this version of Penguin so special.

Firstly, what’s different about Penguin 4.0?

Here are the most significant changes from this algorithm update.

  • Penguin has changed from penalising sites for spammy backlinks, to a more 'granular' approach by just devaluing individual links.
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  • It is also now part of the core algorithm, and acts like many other Google algorithms in that adjustments are made after crawling and indexing the URL. This means that Penguin now acts in ‘real time’. This also means it could be a long time before the full impact of the new Penguin algorithm is felt, as Google will have to effectively re-crawl all your backlinks so Penguin 4.0 can be applied to them.

The implications on search & link building

The main things that have changed within search and link building are:

1.     Majority of sites should see some impact from Penguin, due to three things:

  • You could see drops from unsavoury links being devalued that have the typical attributes Penguin aims to tackle - e.g. links from low-quality directories, article directories and repeated use of the same anchor text.
  • You could see improvements as competitors' spammy links get devalued.
  • Another way you could see improvements is from recoveries from previous Penguin penalties due the removal of the old algorithm. On September 28, Google's Gary Illyes said that these should all be 'rolled out a few days' thereafter. We actually saw the first signs of this just two days after that announcement, on September 30. Since then, Gary provided an update and mentioned this is actually still happening now (as of October 7).

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2.     Negative SEO will become more difficult

One thing that will change is the possibility of getting penalised by Penguin due to negative SEO attacks. This is due to the new Penguin algorithm no longer penalising sites for bad links; going forward, the bad links will effectively just be ignored.

3.     Manipulating PageRank will become more difficult

Building links that aim to manipulate PageRank will become more difficult. If you are building links with lots of exact match anchor text, there is a good chance you just won’t see any benefit from them as soon as they are found by Google. It is highly likely doing this from now on will just be a wasted effort. This is because you won't even get a temporary boost as Penguin will just devalue them as soon as they are discovered.

4.     Penguin updates will no longer be announced

We won't hear about another official Penguin update. From now on, if we see any fluctuations due to updates to the way Penguin works, it's likely to be bundled as a core update and Google will say no more, just as they do with Panda now.

5.     Link audits and disavows become less important for Penguin

Link audits and disavows become less important to combat Penguin. Gary Illyes’ comment on this is, ‘you can help us help you by using it’. In my opinion what he meant by this is to still use the disavow if you are aware of link spam to your site to prevent manual actions because of it. It is still pretty unclear how a disavow would help with Penguin, as when Penguin devalues a link there is nothing you can do to recover from that. The only way to improve would be to get more high quality non spammy links pointing towards your site.

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6.     No more big drops in traffic from Penguin

Once Penguin 4.0 has fully rolled, you should no longer see large drops from Penguin.
You just won’t see improvements in rankings from any links built that seem unnatural or spammy.

7.     Natural, non editorial links become more important

Natural and non editorial links become more important that ever. There is a chance any unnatural editorial links you build are a waste of time anyway.

Notable results so far…

At the time of writing this Penguin 4.0 is being rolled out and previous Penguin penalties are in the final stage of being removed.

Below are some examples of movement we are seeing due to these changes:

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