Google’s Penguin Update: How It Changed Link Building Strategies
In the year 2012, Google officially rolled out “webspam algorithm update”.
The objective was to fight the war against spammy, thin content pages.
A Short History
Before 2012, link volumes were largely preferred for gaining higher ranks in organic searches. What it means is, no matter where the link comes from, Google measured mainly the number of links.
However, with the introduction of the web spam algorithm, the low-quality pages with voluminous backlinks were removed from SERPs. And, notably, this algorithm was officially called- Penguin. Matt Cutts, the then head of Google’s webspam team, tweeted the name shortly after rolling out the update.
But Why Backlinks?
According to experts and industry insiders, backlinks are amongst the top 3 signals for Google to rank any page in SERPs. Experts answer why backlinks are important- links act as a vote for any page online. They are regarded as references that support the information shared on any page.
Google’s primary concern is to give its users what they want to see. In short, Google wishes to be the answer to every query for its users. With spammy links and low-quality pages ranking in top results, it is not possible to give the users the right information.
What Changed After Penguin Was Rolled Out?
The very first update to the webspam link building was rolled out in April 2012. And since then, several other updates have also been made to the same.
Update 1.1
This update was meant to recover the websites that were negatively affected by the initial algorithm.
Update 1.2
The second update largely concerned the English language and international queries.
Update 2.0
This update was more concerned about deeper backlinks, other than the homepage and other top-tier pages.
Update 2.1
The fourth update affected nearly 1% of the search queries since it was rolled out in October 2013.
Update 3.0
Another update was made to recover websites that were negatively affected by Updates 2.0 and 2.1. However, the websites that used Black Hat link-building techniques were still degraded.
Update 4.0
The last update was done before Penguin was patched to Google’s core algorithm. This was to ensure that Penguin can audit websites in real-time, and reward or penalize them accordingly.
How To Recover?
The experts suggest that the first thing to do is stop spammy link-building practices. Instead, practicing strategies such as link building services at OutreachMonks, that ensures natural and relevant linking should be included in the SEO’s core design. In addition to this, experts also suggest removing or disavowing any broken or spammy link that might be affecting a website’s ranking.
Post these simple changes in link-building strategies, the next thing is to ensure that a diverse authority is sought for backlinks. This would help ensure that a website gains authority in all classes.
The Takeaway
Link building is still one of the most crucial practices within the SEO domain. However, the methods have changed. It is indeed best to change the practices according to the updates and cater to the users with the right information that they seek.
