Google Penguin, the newest Google’s algorithm update, has been available for a week and I am very happy as Google finally applied the change. The Penguin was mentioned by Matt Cutts a few months back under the SEO Over Optimization update, but it wasn’t clarified back then. This is actually not targeting SEO but web spam, so the Penguin update should be called webspam algorithm update.
While some bloggers are complaining their blogs are being hit seriously after the update (Google claims that it affects around 3.1% of search queries), majority of us are enjoying the more level playing field. TechWalls is also on the recovering trend and I hope the traffic will come back to its peak within the next 1 month. If you are not sure if your site is targeted by Penguin, check out the list of signals below to see whether you are violating any Google’s rule.
Is your site targeted and how to avoid Google Penguin?
I mentioned some signals in the over SEO optimization post above, it is worth checking out to know if you are ruining your site with wrong SEO strategies. The first thing to look at is your organic traffic, check your Analytics and see if your organic traffic has dropped significantly since April 24, the day Penguin was born and going live. Besides, you should also check ranking of your targeted keyword. If both your organic traffic and keywords are dropping, you should be worried as your site is a victim of Penguin now.
So, what to do next when your site is affected? Here are some general ideas of what you must avoid to fix your website and attain good rankings on Google search:
- Abusing keyword stuffing: Matt Cutts mentions this issue very often lately as this is the most recognizable thing we see on spam websites. If you are violating it by mistake, you should stop using repetitive keywords in meta tags and content. On another hand, if you must use the same keyword many times, you should make sure it is relevant in the whole context or you should consider using synonyms as well.
- Duplicate and spun content: Stop copying or plagiarizing from other sources, you will not be able to get high rank with unoriginal content anymore.
- Hidden links: Google will de-index your site completely if you are trying to hide links from readers and the links are just intended to be crawled by GoogleBot. You should be careful because I know some WordPress plugins hide links and only show them to Google. You can go to Webmaster Tools and use the Fetch as Googlebot tool to check if there is any strange link appear.
- Cloaking: The old black hat SEO technique is outdated and you can’t trick search engine users by showing different content or URLs to what they see on search engines. Check out the video below to know more about cloaking.
- Paid inbound links: You can be in high risk if you are paying to buy back-links. Google Webmaster Guidelines are always against link schemes and you should only get quality links from relevant websites.
Once you make changes to your site and follow Google’s guidelines, you can make a reconsideration request here and Google will take appropriate action to lift your site from the penalization.
Is your site penalized or rewarded after the Penguin update? Let me know if you have more tips to take advantage of the change.
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Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says
My blog is not penalised or rewarded so far, which I take as a good news (though of course if it’s rewarded, I will even be happier :))
As long as scam and spam sites get the blame/fall and genuine ones are not, I’m happy
Though I guess it’s not as simple as that
Tuan Do says
Yes Michael, I wish there could be that perfect world for bloggers so that webmasters could compete fairly. But there is not, the Google Search also can’t satisfy all of its users. So we should learn to accept the changes and make our sites better for both Google and visitors.
I guess whoever want to become a full-time blogger will need to reconsider now. :D
PrIyAnGsHu says
Great tips Tuan ! I have been hit badly by this Penguin update, even though I was not making any of these mistakes. Thumbs down to Google, they are completely confused :( !
Tuan Do says
I’m sorry to hear about that. Hopefully your site will be soon recovered.
I think one of the reason is probably you are using search keywords in your footer.
PrIyAnGsHu @ Tech Blog says
Thanks for your suggestion buddy ! I will remove that plugin as soon as possible !
Amit Shaw says
Thanks for your tips Tuan. I am just starting to check my old articles and going to remove some article which is not getting Visitor though. Thanks for sharing.
Tuan Do says
You are welcome, Amit.
Yes you can remove or improve content of your old articles. This is an effective way to recover our sites from Panda and Penguin.
Abhishek says
Hey Tuan, My blog is not affected by Google’s Penguin Update maybe it is because my blog is new and only have 250 visitors daily. not more than that, but thanks for your all information these information help me in future for getting higher page rank in Google..Thanks for sharing
Tuan Do says
That’s great to hear.
Starting late has the advantage that you can learn from others’ mistakes and avoid them. Wish you the best luck on blogging.
Btw, there is a PR update today, is your site doing good?
Sanjeev says
One of my site hit by panda update on 23 March and i lost my 70% traffic, but this penguin update didn’t make any difference.
Tuan Do says
Hi Sanjeev,
I was also the victim of Panda but my site is getting better after the Penguin update. I lost 50% of my traffic and it is recovering now.
Have you seen the increase in your Pagerank today?
Paul Salmon says
So far none of the Google updates as affected my blog. I remember reading a post from Matt Cutts a while back where he mentioned that providing a tag list on your blog could be seen as keyword stuffing. I guess some of the sites that did have tag lists were affected by the latest change.
Tuan Do says
Yes that’s right, using tag cloud or plugins showing search terms is considered keyword stuffing as well. It’s better to show our blog posts only.
sergiorua says
Hi, I don’t use any of those, and still my website got hit by penguin.
I’m trying for two weeks to discover what is wrong but, it is all to confusing…
I made some changes, but no results so far… I you are interested I can share some ideas and practical examples, just don’t write them write now, because I don’t want to be considered spammer or advertiser.
Tuan Do says
Yeah sure you can share your solutions here. I’d love to see how you are rescuing your site from Google Penguin.
sergiorua says
Well, first I think I was hit by the update of EMD (Exact Match Domain), still don’t know how to solve this, most of my post and game articles where associated to “online” or “games” keywords from the root domain…
Kind of stupid, is that the results now for the same keywords return much more garbage, for example if you look for “bubble witch saga online” you get a lot of results that have nothing to do with the actual game, and only clone flash games, or search result pages….:(
I used to have post_name – Online Games List – Play Free Games Online, I now realize that having “online” and “games” repeated doesn’t work anymore, but my main domain also disappeared, and for that I have no explanation… because when you look for “online games list”, there are a lot of repeated keywords for most site….
Bottom line – Kind of lost here…. if you have any ideas.. :)
Aditya saini says
Thanks Tuan for the Tips , Penguin Algorithm is much more advanced than Panda .Matt Cuts have really presented a great Video on Cloaking .