SEO & Chill: Google’s Penguin Algorithm Will Sink Sites With Spammy Links
April 25th, 2016 by
Every business owner who uses the internet to advertise or display their product (which should be every business owner) needs to know about the importance of Google’s Penguin algorithm. Penguin was introduced way back in April of 2012 as a way to combat some “black hat” SEO practices, such as link buying and link trading with very low-quality and low-authority links. Just like Chill Penguin, Google’s Penguin algorithm is a bit dated, with its last full, confirmed update being back in October 2014, but it was still very active in stopping spammy backlinks. Even before its launch, Google sent out warnings to users of its Webmaster Tools to get rid of their spammy backlinks. Those who heeded the tech giant’s words were rewarded with high rankings in the search engine result pages; those who didn’t ended up on ice.
Continuous Updates
The newest Penguin update won’t be an Earth-shattering update like its previous versions, but this version will have continuous updates that will affect searches. What exactly does that mean? That’s anyone’s guess, but only Google knows the true answer. What we can do is try to prepare. Re-evaluating the information we already possess is a great start. We already know that Google hates super spammy, low-quality links and that they love high-authority links. Using this knowledge, you can pretty much assume that having highly authoritative backlinks would lead to Google liking your website a lot more. As far as this update being continuous, that more than likely means that the algorithm will auto-update based upon information that ends up getting collected.
So What Are Good Links?
Here’s an analogy: let’s say Google’s Penguin algorithm is a real penguin, your website is the penguin trainer, and your backlinks are fish. Low-quality backlinks would be akin to spoiled mullet, whereas high-quality backlinks are more like freshly caught wild Alaskan salmon. Doesn’t take a marine biologist or an ornithologist to figure out that your penguin will like you more if you continue to feed it salmon. High-quality backlinks will eventually lead you to increased SERP rankings. Not having backlinks is similar to starving your penguin; it makes your page look as if it isn’t an authority on its subject, which is bad news.
Where Can I Start Getting Good Backlinks?
Our very own Mary Silva outlined a pretty good strategy of procuring high-authority backlinks. The process itself isn’t easy and requires some inherent knowledge of the internet and the ability to rummage through links extensively and identify what would be the best moving forward into the outreach portion. What it entails is auditing all of your backlinks and clearing out all of the weak and low-authority backlinks. Then comes the hard part: reaching out to other high-authority sources to link to your site is one part of the next step. The more high-authority sources linking to your site, the more likely you are to gain Google’s praise. Another way to link build is to create unique and engaging content so that others can share it and create backlinks for you.
If you don’t think you’re up for intense link building, Search Influence offers many different search engine optimization packages that can be custom tailored to fit both your budget and needs.
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