The Google Penguin Updates; How It Will Affect Organic Search?

This year, Google has dealt several blows to SEO shysters with its latest updates to its ranking algorithm, including Penguin and Panda 2.0. Penguin specifically targets websites that use unrelated keywords and links from unrelated sites to manipulate rankings. While updates are reportedly still ongoing, the impact made to websites across the Internet has been dramatic, with many owners complaining that they can no longer survive with such low search engine rankings. 

So, how exactly do the algorithm updates affect search?

Say goodbye to SEO tricks

Google is trying to punish those webmasters who have been focused more on pleasing the search engines instead of pleasing their human visitors. Over the years, SEO has evolved from tricks such as repeating text over and over again in white fonts to elaborate link-building schemes, which have produced millions of garbage pages all over the net. All of this tomfoolery is coming to light, and the end result is that these millions of pages are going to have to be rewritten or simply deleted if the sites are to have any chance of ranking highly again. 

Link farms and other shady ways to build backlinks must also be dismantled, and Google's new Disavowal tool will hopefully make it easier for Webmasters to clean up their links.

What Google likes

Google will reward site owners who ignore all but the basic, common sense things you should do for SEO (such as well-written descriptions, meta tags and sitemaps), and instead focus on producing excellent material which entertains, informs and otherwise provides a quality visitor experience. 

The best advice is to simply write naturally, as in this way keywords will naturally flow. As an example, a website which sells refrigerators will be hard pressed to write blog articles and without mentioning keyword phrases such as "refrigeration" "quality refrigerators" and more. They will spring up organically, with little effort. No need for SEO gurus who charge hundreds of dollars to dictate specific keyword densities and other such nonsense. 

Once great content is live, related sites will of course link to it again, in a rather organic way without cheating by link spamming in forums and blog comment fields.

Tips to survive after Penguin

Generally, to survive Penguin, Panda and any other updates, simply use common sense: 

• Stop trying to trick search engines 

They are catching on. In fact, stop obsessing over search engines entirely and instead focus on building your audience with great content. The search engines will find you! 

• Think like a media mogul 

Compare your website to a quality publication. Notice that a good magazine has lots of interesting articles, with a few ads around. This is how webmasters should approach their design, like a top-notch glossy mag, with the benefit of being interactive since it is on the Web. 

Let social media do a lot of heavy lifting

Even is starting to consider the amount of "likes" and shares to determine ranking. Still in a formative stage, the blending of social media and search is going to be a huge factor in the future, since more people spend time on Facebook than they do Google. One reported trend is that many younger people are skipping search altogether and finding out about deals, products, and media through social media rather than Google or Bing. 

Although many will lament the end of the SEO firms, since most were pitching snake oil, which produced poor sites, most Internet users won't miss them.

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About the author: Steven Chalmers’ storied career has seen its fair share of accolades and awards. When he’s not writing poignant articles, you can find him covering Microsoft 365 or working on his forthcoming bluegrass album due out in early February.