Google search engine has continuously fought to encourage relevant content and penalize regurgitated and plagiarized content in its search results. To reinforce this, we have seen updates in its search algorithm, which include Google Panda, Google Penguin, Google Hummingbird and now the most recent Google Penguin 3.0.
Relevance, Authority and Quality
All these updates have had one thing in common; to try to identify websites that use abnormal back linking structures to gain an unwarranted ranking advantage – sites that try to play the search bots, and penalize them appropriately. At the same time, the updates gear towards rewarding websites that demonstrate real authority by offering great content that engages their audience, while also attracting natural backlinks from related websites.
However, unlike the previous full updates, Google refers to the Penguin 3.0 as just a ‘refresh’ to the already existing updates. It is not being considered as a full update although its effects are likely to be felt far and wide. This ‘refresh’ update, aims at cleaning up those websites that were lucky to have escaped discovery by the other previous updates.
Bad Link Profiles Will Lead to Severe Penalties
What this means is that websites that have not cleaned up their houses owing to the previous updates and still have bad link profiles will most likely notice a drop in their rankings. At the same time, websites that put in an effort to clean up the links pointing back to them to ensure no spammy links will get a reward.
So, over the next few weeks, this mini-update, so to speak, will result in to some sites disappearing in to the oblivion, while others that put in the efforts to clean house will rise significantly in their rankings on the SERPs.
Foundation for Future Major Updates
Insiders in this industry are also predicting a major update from Google after the Penguin 3.0. They deduce that this ‘refresh’ update is most likely a foundation for a major update in the near future. A major factor supporting this is that Google has not released any major follow-up update for over a year and releasing a minor mini-update does not cut it.
All said, it is important to remember that Google’s main slogan is that ‘Content is King’. Therefore, if you want to be safe from any current and future algorithm updates, the best way around it is to provide value through highly engaging and relevant content for your website users.
