GOOGLE's Penguin OPUS 1

Another famous penguin - OPUS (circa 1985)

There has been much written about GOOGLE's Penguin update which was released on April 24, 2012. This is one of the latest algorithm updates that GOOGLE has been working on - to improve search results. But let's try to remember: improvement, like beauty, is usually in the eye of the beholder. Indeed some businesses have seen their results improve, while others have witnessed a free fall.

The purpose of today's post is to share with our readers and our clients some good resources to understand GOOGLE's Penguin goals and take a little time to review your site. Here are a few things to consider:

1. GOOGLE like every major player in search engines is making updates all of the time. Some updates gain more notoriety and some happen quietly. To appreciate how often GOOGLE updates their algorithms, take a peek at this algorithm change history. 
2. GOOGLE is known for naming their updates. This is a common practice in the IT world or any project driven business. It makes discussing or recalling the project, that much easier.
3. GOOGLE does share their best practices guidelines. They encourage webmasters to read and understand their Quality Guidelines. However, if you have a website for the purposes of promoting your business, be proactive and read the guidelines, most of it is written for the non-technical person. 
4. A good rule to follow when creating and updating your site: "Say what you do and do what you say!" Create one great site, avoid duplicate content and mirrored sites. Or as GOOGLE says: "Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content."

As promised, below we will provide links to a few interesting articles about Penguin. You might also like to watch these videos of GOOGLE's Matt Cutts discussing penalties and webspam.

Related articles

• Should The Google Penguin Update Hit Sites Like WPMU.org? (webpronews.com)
• Google Penguin 1.1 Update Underway? Recoveries? (seroundtable.com)
• Google Penguin Update   (webpronews)