Why Google’s Penguin 2.0 isn’t as scary as we thought
What’s black and white and feared all over? Yes, that’s right, it is Google’s long-awaited Penguin 2.0 update. Since it was rolled out a couple of weeks ago, what has the impact been?
Well, to be honest, it’s been fairly minor. Nothing like the catastrophic effect many SEO types have been predicting. This could mean one of two things: either the algorithm itself just didn’t have any significant alterations, or everyone is running flawless SEO campaigns. We know the latter isn’t the case, so seemingly Penguin 2.0 was a classic example of an overhyped algorithm update.
Penguin 2.0 has been plaguing the SEO industry headlines for several weeks with fears rife about sites being badly hit and plummeting down the rankings. However, after the update kicked into action on 22nd May, everyone waited… and waited… for something to happen.
Of course, some sites have found themselves affected worse than others. Penguin 2.0 appeared to be about delving deeper to uncover those underhand tactics which might have been hidden in the site, supposedly away from the eyes of Google.One of the tactics which contributed to the fall of some of the worst hit sites was exact anchor text matching. This is where, for example, a vast proportion of links pointing to a subcategory page will use anchor text that exactly matches the name of that page. Google sees that this is, of course, an obvious way to attract its attention, and the algorithm update clearly includes a way to ignore this blatant attempt to cheat the system.
Of course, we use legitimate techniques to get your site climbing Google’s rankings at Artemis. If you’ve found your site has been hit by Penguin 2.0, or you’re worried about the tactics you’re using at the moment, get a free SEO consultation today and we’ll be happy to talk you through what we can do to help you.
