Penguin 2.0 - Possible SERP Armageddon On It's Way - Batten Down The Hatches, Gang!

Let's see how bad they'll f*ck it up this time

Brilliant, it's been too long since a decent update to wipe out all the low value websites again.

I love these updates because they let the cream rise to the top.

This one is going to be epic.Let's see what have we learnt with the 1.0.

Oh, it'll be alright - I've been spamming thousands of wikis, profiles and blog comments to my penguin 2.0s!

I wonder by how much their PPC revenue will jump after this update.

Of course it will be followed by a host of new WSO's on how to get back those rankings...

Alright who is going to hold the pot? We need to get a forum pool going. I'll put down a 20 on number 7

Thats 7 threads in the first week after the algo goes live saying that SEO is dead.

I think the better pool will be how many sh*tty websites will rank on the 1st page for keywords with high PPC cost, so they can compensate their 3% drop in PPC revenue

In the last two days, 2 of my websites seen a 25% decrease in traffic. The two days before that they seen a 25% increase in traffic. Don’t know whats going on but I haven’t participated in link building on those sites, and those websites have content written by experts in the field. Content that rivals wikapedia content. So maybe white hat is affected to.

I think something happened yesterday & then they switched back to the previous algo. again in the same day. I had ranked pages move that almost never move, everything eventually settled back down like nothing happened.

I don't usually go along with the sky is falling threads, but I have a feeling Google is going to shake things up soon. Yesterday looked like they were testing something new & it did bring old over optimized domains back to the top of the SERPs (at least in my niche).

What I've learned about Google is, have multiple domains in the same niche, don't panic or change anything when Google shakes up the SERPs wait it out because ranked pages sometimes fall right back into place when everything settles down.

I got a couple "experimental" websites which violate every Google police ever written (except link building). Seen no fluctuation at all for those sites. Its almost stupid not to have a few throwaway websites.

Couldn't agree more.

What would you do if you were the Penguin Master and you saw the havoc (apparently) that you had wrecked on webmasters at forums such as this? You'd be going it again. You'd have been looking at networks to take down (possibly with the help of the G disavow tool). You'd be looking at all the attempted recovery work and the services that had spawned up to be Penguin-proof, Penguin recovery. You'd be looking at mass de-indexing/devaluing unnaturally linked web 2.0 properties and the links from there on out and sites that were relying on OBVIOUS rejuvenation of expired (formally high PR)domains.
That's what will happen. If it doesn't I still keep my day job and come back here in the evenings for fun, anyway.

I am just about to launch 20 Amazon sites/month. Perhaps I should delay it a bit now that the first 5 are build just to see what the new update brings?

Nah, **** it, we go all the way and die with the ship when needed

Very curious what this will bring though as Matt uses some strong words, but perhaps it's just another scare tactic.

Silently I hope (well not so silent anymore) that they are after spun content as I'm avoiding that for quite a while now. Such update would really give me laughs big time. Or perhaps spammy tier 2 link building as people still think they can get away with 10,000's of blog comments as long as it's not directly pointed at their website.

My only fear is that they kind of reset the link juice from high PR expired/dropped domains. That would be disastrous for the whole SEO industry. Although such scenario is incredibly unlikely as it would affect way too many real websites.

It's okay now, Captain Cutts is here!

Yeah, but Nik0 he doesn't. It's all the furore from the so-called big SEO sites that says he does and perpetuates the myth. What Mr Cutts says is to expect Penguin 2.0 within the next few weeks. That's fine. Bring it on.

I'm not worried about my websites, they have survived all of the google updates and still have page one rankings to this day. My trick was to find the right keywords and not build too many spam backlinks.

Tribute to all those IMers that ranked their first keyword, right before Google pulled the plug.

Possible areas that could be impacted negatively?

• Guest blog posting.
• Web 2.0 properties.
• Blog commenting.

If the trend towards link devaluation accelerates too rapidly in the next 60 days or so people are going to need a PLAN B very soon.

I feel the real key heading into an update like this is to have a number of different tactics in play so that the losses from any sites hit by Penguin 2.0 are offset by the ones that gain from it.

This is a bad time to have all the old eggs in one basket!

Cutts does this for every pre-announced update. Hypes the crap out of it with big scary words in an attempt to get everyone talking about it.

If you don't do much SEO, you dont have much to lose!
I'm not one of those saying SEO does not matter though. I think it does.
However, since last year, I've decided to concentrate almost entirely on content and only do some SEO here and there. It is just not worth it knowing your work might be mostly taken away from you in the next update.
Content is one thing they cannot take away!

Don't laugh too hard. You might miss your education.

When someone advises you to have "quality content".
They are not referring solely to the words or grammar presented on a given page.

Here's a few indicator's of "quality content"

1. Good keyword research. (Market Targeted)
2. Good Content structure and format (On-Page Optimization)
3. Targeted to the search query that brought a user to your page. (Relevance)
4. Well Written/Designed (User Engagement)

Here's a few indicator's how Google can quantify your "quality content"

1. Relevance
2. Bounce Rate
3. User Engagement
4. Bookmarking/Social Sharing
5. Return Visitors
6. Manual Search Quality Reviews
7. Backlinks

This list is Non-Exhaustive. Just a quick sample of quantifiable factors Google uses to determine "quality content".

I love the drama of an good algo update. This is like the SEO Superbowl. Best of luck gentlemen.

And always remember "Duck and Cover"

as long as every keyword has 10 results on SERP, seo will be alive

Here's an update from Matt Cutts outlining the likely updates over summer....

What to expect in SEO in the coming months

Let me be honest, I hope that recently they did a little test, because all of my keywords went up.

Now they are back down to number 8

I build contextual links, generally from blog sites and networks, honestly I can't really see how google will stop that other than manually shutting down networks. But I guess we'll see.

It might not help to rank, but all the points mentioned will definitely help to sustain any ranking you might have or will get.

Sounds like a good plan for SEO'ers, wait for updates, load up on stocks!

SEO Doom, I love it. Never gets old.

This time its gonna be big. Already there are signs of giving value to old and authority sites and killing spam blogs/sites. So its just a wait and watch game now.

I will be sitting back and watching...

Fingers crossed its not as bad as everybody thinks....

Like any other technology, Google will also keep on updating their algo. I don't think we should be worried about the update. Instead we should give more importance on how to survive or implementing better plans for coming days. Staying positive is important at this stage.

Anyway, I got my lesson in the last update. So, now not giving importance only to Google. There are lot others to think - social media, video, banner advertising etc.

It's not a big thing. I only hope I'll don't get hit.

My mind is really put by me to it to shed Weight quickly! Too bad I am not a woman

They can do whatever they want with their search engine. There will still be a way around it. I hope they don't screw up big this time

I think Google/Matt are probably on a scare tactic mission. I have no doubts the average backlink buyer will panic, run straight to the disavow tool & reveal/confirm which links (networks) are paid links.

Google created the ultimate lazy mans tool (disavow tool).

Why screw around looking for link networks when Google can simply shake up the SERPs at random (not targeting anything), then sit back & let the disavow link reports flood in from webmasters in panic mode that are trying to save their own azz.

When Google gets the data back simply count all the domains that are hits from multiple GWT accounts, the domains with the high number of disavow reports are the backlink network sources. Done.

It's like watching a big bully on a playground twisting a nerds arm until he cries uncle, UNCLE!!!!

Ride the waves boys, we've got movement in Local. Loving it!

@yukon... Amen brother, never used disavow never will. Like calling the cops to your crack house over a domestic squabble. Want them to poke around and see what else you have going on? My stuff is pretty clean, still not inviting them in.

Seems to me if you have your own high PR network and you haven't been selling links on it, you'll be in a better position than most. Pretty much what has been advocated by most of those in the know for the past year or so. If you weren't following things closely and have indulged in mass tier spamming only then you might be in for a surprise.
Trouble is, I think many folks' SEO campaigns over the past year have involved a combo of high PR links and tier spamming of web 2.0s.
It might be tricky yet, when the shit hits the fan, to distinguish exactly what has caused penalties or trust devaluation. In the case of the above kind of combos (and not a lot else) I'd expect a drop in rankings that is relatively easily recoverable. But this is all speculation, of course. I'm looking forward to a few public blog networks and SAPE style blackhat spam hacking *******s to really get beaten down to a pulp.

CONTENT IS KING!!!

Sorry I LOL everytime I hear Cutts tell people all they have to do is focus on creating a great site and Google will make them millionaires.

Penguin 2.0 will come, mess all the SERPs, and there will be tons of whining. Also expect tons of white hat collateral damage, tons of spam sites on top, and Matt Cutts will have to go into witness protection again.

About a month later the resourceful SEO folk will have cracked the algorithm again and life will go on, while the rest will have to figure out another way out of mom's basement.

Well I have noticed a huge spike in ranking increases for one of my local sites... fingers crossed :-)

Danny

Different between Penguin 1 and 2

I hope it will not affect too much on me with this new upcoming update. The best thing to do now is to think of new process in-order to maintain everything. Are they really planning on killing softly the SEO?

^ They lost 3% of search share since Penguin due to sh*t results on the 1st page, so honestly I don't know wtf they thinking ... if they won't get it right Bing & Yahoo will catch up to them in a few years.

The sky is falling!!

Honestly, lets take a look at how things are going. Google hasn't been super specific, it looks like they might go after tiered linking, which I mean lets be honest, tiered linking is pretty random, the only way I can think of to take that out is to discount web 2.0s.

Which will probably kill more white hat sites then the "dark side" of the internet.

Google still has no way to attack private blog networks, that's why they have to de-index them manually.

Sape is unfortunately still around.

There are other networks like sape that are still live and kicking as well.

Honestly I don't see how Google is going to deal with all of these problems, sounds more like they're just going to hit another one.

But google is always changing like this. I mean heck, do you guys remember link rings or whatever they were called? Or heck, back when pligg sites were the way to go.

Or even guestbooks, or heck, when web directories were a big deal...ok those can still help a bit.

Always going to be changes, and SEO will always respond, It will be an on going battle as long as search engines exist.

I know I am new here and you might be saying what the hell does this guy know but I have been online since 1999 and this is my experience with the whole SEO game.

It is worthless in my opinion and there is NO one way or one thing or even multiple things in this case that you can do to rank well.

Of course there are always the basics like:

1. quality content - which google refers to as Original content which those who do not know what quality means. What's on your website could be worthless but if the content on your website is only on your website and is related to a topic of choice then it is considered somewhat quality.

2. back links.

See when you hear Google, [Matt Cuts] always talking about penalizing paid links First, they will never even know a paid link from not a paid link unless it is an obvious link farm.
But in all of his videos he has to talk the way he talks because it is all about engraving it in the minds of his listeners that you

SHOULD NOT BUY LINKS
SHOULD NOT BUY LINKS
SHOULD NOT BUY LINKS
SHOULD NOT BUY LINKS

If you hear it enough times then you will start believing it and this is what he is doing.

Now, I have done the whole SEO game for years and I was successful at it but I just gave up caring about what Google says and what Google wants and most people should too and here is why:

1. Google will change their rules all the time
2. Depending on SEO means you are constantly working on satisfying a search engine who does not give a crap about you instead of growing your own business/presence online.

I say, focus on growing your traffic whether buying a backlink from a popular site that can get you direct traffic, or posting banners on blogs like from buyads.com or whatever you do. Even article marketing is still effective and it's FREE.
Bottom line is diversify and spend money on immediate stable traffic.

Once more people do that, they will start to see more money being generated for their business and not give a damn about what Google wants because let's face it, Google does not care about you period..

And once Google sees that people do not care about their pathetic rules and updates anymore, they will start playing by our rules and being a bit nicer to us than they have been lately.

But for SEO lovers out there, let me tell you the easy way to rank on search engines especially GOOGLE.

"The less you know about SEO, the easier it is to rank"

Why do I say that? Well because Google cares about quality and what they mean by that is to basically worry about your blog for example, worry about your readers, provide amazing service and amazing content and just do it without caring one bit about:

1. keyword stuffing
2. meta tags
3. hyperlinking

and much more.

The more spontaneous everything looks on your website/blog the easier it is to rank because this is what Google wants. They want to randomly find you without you setting your website to be found and once they rank you in this manner, you can keep your ranking for a long time and never have to worry about getting slapped with any update and this is because you never did anything to begin with in order to get ranked; remember, they found you not the other way around.

I can go on and on but this should get you thinking for now

"Funny" about these updates is that you are not completely safe even if you have never done any black-hat stuff and you follow their guidelines to the letter.

Below is the picture of how every Google's update worked so far (and I don't think it's about to change for future updates):





So what they have to figure out basically is how to harm very few "natural" sites and get rid of as much as possible "seo" sites.

Of course, we don't know the criteria yet but I believe this is what will happen shortly after the release.

In fact, I believe they are already "trying" things out because one of my sites moved like +60 positions.

It is not natural site either.

It's EMD sniper site loaded with CB aff links.

Weird/Cool



Tibor

Lol, are you Becker or something or are you just his number 1 fan?

(same infographic and same sig)

Personally I've been witnessing tons of 'flux' since May 5th 2013. Google - to me - seems to be testing different data sets. I draw this conclusion from the fact that Google sends visitors to certain pages using custom titles they set.

When I search through certain data centers I see the pages listed with the same title. Something like "Keywords - Mysite." They show an alternative of "Keywords - Mysite | Mysite Words" which I've never been able to find using proxies of different Google searches.

One version of the title converts well, the other doesn't. I have no idea what exact test their running but it seems like they'll eventually choose one data set and go from there.

These are the anecdotal observations of a lone webmaster, so I can't put much faith it what I see.

Only safe way to run your business is to have different domains in your best niche that are optimized differently - we have 3 squeaky clean sites that make the most money, 3 grey hat sites that make a good chunk, and 10 crap black hat sites.

Since the fluctuations started in Google all 3 types of sites have swung up and down in traffic and earnings - BUT, once again as of the 19th the squeaky clean sites are recovering and look like they are going to survive the new Penguin.

Not as high as the pre-4/15 update, but still paying the bills. We were totaling $15,000 a month and now it looks like around $11,000 - lower but still not at the loss of SELL everything start eating dirt.

Is Penguin 2.0 gone live now?? I have noticed changes on Google Australia Ranks..... may be they start from there.. I wonder,,

I am still seeing a lot of EMD ranking high - yes even ones with crappy content

My main money site - over the last year I have not focused on link building but only driving traffic to it , that said checking my Webmaster tools last night I noticed over 70,000 forum links (actual posts not spammy profile pages) have now been removed

I still rank highly for a ton of Long tail keywords but like I said I have been focused on driving traffic only to this site and not the SERPS

I think these Panda/Penguin updates are mostly google misinformation ploys. They put out some stuff like "We're cracking down on web spam!" then they make a couple algo changes and click the "scramble SERPS" button. Everyone thinks that google busted their method, and abandons it. Google wins.

It seems like Penguin 2.0 is rolling out right now. Anyone else seeing big changes?

Update shmupdate. There is ALWAYS a way around it.

Just like car alarms. No sooner do manufactures come up with a new technology to deter thieves and prevent the car starting etc do car thieves come up with a way around it to open the door and drive off.

Same applies with SEO. Which is not really an abbreviation for "Search Engine Optimisation" as most people think it is. It's actually a synonym for "Gets Round New Google Algos".

I like the way the updates do root out a lot of thin sites though. But definitely there is more emphasis it seems by Google to push brand awareness rather than giving the honest new webmaster a chance to actually get a slice of the pie too. After all, like 90% of the internet is made up of blogs and what not anyway isn't it?

Be interesting to see what the new update actually does though. Any details on that?

I agree with Mike. If this is the big bad Penguin 2.0 rolling out then im loving it. All sites are holding strong or moving up so far.

Yeah I wish I could believe this was it though. This is likely just the quiet before the storm - a little reshuffling as they get ready to lower the ax on more link spam. Still concerned for a few clients because a few had a bunch of that before they came to me.

Yeah I'm not celebrating either, in fact I'm kind of worried that all my clients are either holding strong or moving up quite a bit....

Hilarious - thought one of our main sites got slammed by Penguin, and it turned out to simply be the BlueHost server was crawling like snail - moving like tractor. They fixed the server issue and the traffic pouring in again. What timing ;-)

Looks like the Penguin indeed started:
Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live

I am not understanding this...what does this new update do? I know it is making a difference in serps but how?

I was just getting used to the first penguin. It made me rethink how I build links with variation of text and other factors. Is this update targeting something else?

Just saw some drops now on a clients site, but not huge:



Just a few days ago, and for many months previously, 5 of these keys were at #1 and 4 were at #2. I'm happy they arent tanking to like 100+ but we'll see what happens...

We are seeing a lot of RED too...

Keep one thing in mind people:
DO NOT BECOME GOOGLE SQUEALERS and start giving away your link sources!! That's what they want from this whole mess!

Let the serps stabilize for about a 4-6 weeks and then we should see the actual results of this "update".

Is there any word on if this is a worldwide update or just in USA maybe. In Europe nothing seems to have changed yet?

From what I see P2 was just an adjustment to the things P1 looked at. The people who it seemed to be affecting the most is people who didn't get the memo and were still pointing junk links straight at their site.

Theres still another update or two before summer end but I would figure the one Cutts hinted at tiered link building could end up being far more serious, So far this has been FAR less epic than advertised except for those doing link building in a way everyone knew was wrong after P1.

Looks like a link devaluing update...not an outright penalty.

At least with the sites I've been tracking so far.

In other words, things look good so far.

As serpfox updates more sites have been negatively affected and again they all have the same thing in common: 1000's of spammy back links.

Personally I build about 20-30 links in my monthly service so they definitely do not come from me and the sites that just have a few 100 links are still going strong.

I think those sites were just lucky to survive penguin 1.0 and now they are hit, while they should be hit before already. Or it kind of shows that penguin 1.0 was much more focused on anchor diversity then on actual spammy back links.

There was an update? Everything seems the same on my niche, no change at all with me or the other sites on page 1. I did go up on some keywords that I was ranking on page 10 which won't really make any difference. That's about it.

Hey. I'm new to WF, but not so new to IM and SEO. Penguin 2.0 effed my sites up badly guys. I was using "the backlinking strategy that works" but now it doesn't work so well. I'm totally lost now.

The flushing of turds seems to be accelerating! I told you all to batten down the hatches because SERPS Armageddon was upon us!