Penguin update

Google Penguin (since 2012) targets link spam: paid links, link farms, too rapid link growth and over-optimised anchor texts. Since 2016, Penguin has worked in real time as part of the core algorithm and devalues unnatural links. Natural links through good content are sustainable.

The term Penguin update covers several Google algorithm changes aimed at manipulative links and webspam. The first Penguin update was rolled out in April 2012, followed by several updates, including Penguin 2.0 in May 2013 and Penguin 3.0 in October 2014. With Penguin 4.0, the filter became part of the core algorithm in September 2016: since then, it works in real time and usually simply devalues unnatural links instead of penalising entire websites.

What does Penguin target?

Unnatural links: for example paid links or link networks intended to influence rankings
Over-optimised anchor texts: when most backlinks carry exactly the same keywords as link text
Unnatural link growth and low-quality sources: conspicuously quickly built links, for example from link farms, article directories or comment spam

Background of the update and websites affected by Penguin

Google introduced Penguin to stop manipulation of the search results through over-optimisation – above all in link building. The websites affected had generally violated the Webmaster Guidelines of the time (today's spam policies). Websites with an unnatural link profile were hit hardest: paid links, conspicuously many links with money keywords as anchor text and too rapid link building. Google also devalued low-quality links from link farms, article directories or blog comments and links from completely unrelated websites. Keyword stuffing on the website itself was also targeted.

Since Penguin, artificial link building through buying or exchanging links has been risky and largely ineffective. Instead, reputable websites rely on high-quality content that others link to voluntarily, as well as digital PR and social media marketing to make content known.

Criticism of the Penguin update

After the first Penguin updates, criticism quickly arose. Many website owners lost significant visibility but received no notification and had to work out for themselves which links were the problem. In addition, affected websites often had to wait months for the next Penguin update to recover after cleaning up. Google solved this problem in 2016 with the real-time version. According to Google, around three percent of search queries were affected by the first Penguin update – significantly fewer than the roughly twelve percent of the Panda update, but often with drastic consequences for the websites concerned.

Importance of Penguin and Panda for search engine optimisation

Panda tackled the quality of content, Penguin the quality of links. Together, both updates significantly improved the quality of Google's search results. What does this mean for SEO?

Above all, the way of working has changed: reputable SEOs no longer create content for search engines but for people, without overloading it with keywords. Links are placed where they make sense for users, and backlinks are gained through good content and genuine relationships. Black hat SEO and short-term tricks have since faded further and further into the background – today, Google also detects link spam with the AI system SpamBrain. Time and budget are therefore much better invested in sustainable, rule-compliant SEO measures.