A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the pending release of the new <a title=”Google’s Penguin update is coming…” href=”https://strategiq.co/googles-penguin-update-coming/” target=”_blank”>Penguin update</a>. Finally, after over a year long wait it has finally arrived. Google confirmed on Monday 21<sup>st</sup> October, that they had released it on Friday. Penguin targets sites that Google see’s as spammy, especially those that are in violation of Google’s guidelines about linking.
Unfortunately at the moment there are no more updates from Google to indicate what the percentage of search results have been affected.
<h2>The history of the Penguin</h2>
This is the 6<sup>th</sup> update of Penguin. Although it has been coined Penguin 3.0, this isn’t the name that Google has given it. Since it’s first realised in April 2012, there has been a steady update until this last year.
Here are dates of all Penguin releases:
<ul>
<li>Penguin 1.0Â on April 24, 2012 (impacting 3.1% of queries)</li>
<li>Penguin 1.1Â on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%)</li>
<li>Penguin 1.2Â on October 5, 2012 (impacting 0.3% of queries)</li>
<li>Penguin 2.0Â on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)</li>
<li>Penguin 2.1Â on Oct. 4, 2013 (impacting around 1% of queries)</li>
<li>Penguin 3.0Â on October 17, 2014 (impact not yet released)</li>
</ul>
<h2>What does it mean for our clients?</h2>
As previously promised, we were closely monitoring the situation and were aware that this update was being released in the not to distant future. With that in mind, we are happy to announce that so far we can only see good things from this update for our clients. Many have seen an increase in the rankings! With no one receiving a penalty, which is the most important thing.
If you have any questions about any of the updates, or you are concerned about your own website. Then please get in touch and we would be happy to help