Google Penguin Update Hit 10/17 - In Case any Local Peeps were in the Google Dog House

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Google reportedly just confirmed that the long awaited Penguin update hit Friday 10/17/14.
That was the 1st Penguin update In over a year.


I'd been reading all the speculation that Penguin hit this weekend, but some felt it was maybe a different new algo. Good to know it's been confirmed by Google, so we all know what it is.

Hopefully some honest businesses that just goofed up, get their "get out of jail free" card!

Barry broke the story over at SEland
Google Releases First Penguin Update In Over A Year
#10 or 17 #case #dog #google #hit #house #local #peeps #penguin #update
  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    I've noticed a jump on some stubborn client accounts today. That's good news. The majority of the increases haven't been in the pack for me, but organic.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Still a bit early to determine for sure, but I think the most recent update went after the obvious PBN's. And really I am not sure you can call the targets PBN's because it appears they targeted the single location Juice specifically.

      From my initial understanding it appears that Google isn't penalizing the "Money" site specifically as much as it is penalizing the "Juice" site, which is a bit of an un for seen twist.

      If history repeats itself... Mid to late November should be oh so interesting!
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  • Profile picture of the author akazo
    Crazy stuff. I had a site that Bing loved but Google wouldn't put on the first 10 pages no matter what I did. Now it is the 3rd organic listing...
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    • John spoke too soon.

      It ain't over til it's over - and I guess it ain't quite over afterall.

      Per John on G+ not quite done yet: "I might have spoken a bit early, hah - it looks like things may still be happening. I'll double-check in the morning."

      https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BarrySc...ts/WG6PauMYzJ2
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      Linda Buquet :: Google+ Local Specialist and Google Top Contributor
      ADVANCED Google+ Local Training :: Also offering White Label Local SEO
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      • Profile picture of the author savidge4
        If you go back as far as 2003 I believe the "Florida" update was started in late November, and rolled HARD well into and past December. The reason I mention this one in particular, This the update that changed SEO. The one and only that got rid of keyword stuffing and many other bad tactics ( Oh the Irony "Keyword Stuffing" with the name Florida - Google tells the future too! )

        Google HISTORICALLY rolls major updates in the November December time frame.

        • 2005,
        • 2006 ( Google denied this one and they were full of sh )
        • 2009
        • 2010
        • 2011
        • 2012 ( whats interesting about 2012 is there was an update that took place November 19th, that was rather hard hitting, and there is little to no documentation on this one in particular. there was another update in the November 21st range that was "Data" only that seemed to have gotten the most attention )
        • 2013 (The last "Penguin Update" rolled out in October - seems familiar - and following there were a number of "Unconfirmed" updates that rocked the SEO world. December 19th saw the BIGGEST flux since Penguin 2.0 was updated at the end of May 2013
        2014 has been an overly quite year in general. Looking at 2012 with something like 35 updates for the year, and 2013 with 17 and 2014 with a poultry 10 or so, and many of those where Authorship updates that I don't really consider or the "New" Https variable being added ( I will tell you in TIME this will be a biggy )

        There has been way more chaos and confusion with WordPress and WooCommerce updates this year than anything, other than say "Pigeon" it has for sure been quite.

        I personally see this most recent update rolling for a few days. I see a refinement to roll out in early mid November with another in late November, and a major blow coming again in December or very early January.

        With Matt Cutts currently out of the picture ( He is on personal leave until "October" and I see that time frame stretching ) I personally believe this is personal. This is John Mueller laying the hammer down on a select few. But I think the reach of the "Select few" is going to be far reaching, and in my opinion a good overall direction at equalizing the SERPS.

        If you have read this far, I am going to let you in on some insights that I have made over the past few months, and I believe THIS update in particular cements the validity of these insights. When you look at Penguin in particular, it is obviously related to back links. Tie this in with some seemingly un related updates this year that I stated really don't count ( Authorship ) and things get interesting.

        Google "Removed" the Authorship tag in a August update. BUT if you read the "official" notation on this, they make it MORE THAN clear that if someone were to follow "Best Practices" they might use "Rich Snippets" markup. Keep in mind that the rich snippets "Home" Schema.org is a collaboration of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. ( Interesting bed fellows AT best )

        Back to the point. Rich Snippets includes an "Authorship tag" ( the one that Google was basically duplicating with their own data ) You have Google saying Oh this is Bye Bye and in small small letters saying "pssst, use this"

        How does this fit into back linking? well there have been more than a few drops about the idea of using your NAME as anchor text. Not your URL, or your web address. Specifically YOUR NAME. How I see this played out. Say you have a link in your Forum signature going to your page ( please notice I personally do not have a signature ) for every post that you have on say THIS Forum alone, that is a backlink to your site.

        As of this post that means I personally would have 1278 backlinks from this one single URL. Sounds kind of spammy when you look at it this way. Add in the fact that ALL 1278 links would be the exact same anchor text, and it becomes clear there may be an issue. If you were now to look at the above suggestions ( rich snippets and Authorship ) they are SUGGESTING that if you have a signature link, that you use YOUR NAME as the Anchor text, and on the site end of the link, there would be MATCHING Rich Snippet Authorship information.

        It has even been noted that this practice should be followed when you are making comments on other blogs etc.

        Now the implications in this... All of the folks that use the post signature to link to say YouTube Videos or their face book page or to silly affiliate offers will get penalized. All of those that OWN the property they are sending links to AND have proper NAME identification on either end, may or may not see listing increase, but will not see penalty.

        So that's my golden nugget for the week.
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