Looks like Penguin was a success for shareholders

[timwilliams]

Google's earnings report for q2 was just released and it appears to be a pretty good indication of penguin's success. Forecast: more penguin...

Revenue came in at 9.61 billion, 1.2 billion higher than estimates, and 42% more revenue from paid clicks than q2 2011.

I think that the writing is on the wall for commercial sites in the serps.

[claaarky]

A - because it stops people wasting their time which would be better used on improving their sites and in turn is better for google (i.e. B).

I think the founders are still in control and very proud.

[superclown2]

I think Google's aim is to only allow top quality sites (sites most people like) to prosper in the organic AND paid results, because they know that presenting quality sites produces a better experience overall for their users, and that will encourage long term loyalty. Panda and Penguin are the means to that end - encourage people to up their game or call it a day.

That would be correct if they were top quality sites but in most cases they are not. The highest listed sites are, far too often, 'safe' sites, in other word pages from large companies offering products which they do not provide themselves which, although they provide little value to searchers, are not going to upset them too much either. Producing an algorithm which will give precedence to sites such as these is not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination. In the meanwhile the real top quality sites packed with information either languish too far down to be noticed or are penalised (sorry manually adjusted) out of existence.

The field is wide open for a rival which really will offer top quality sites.

Long term loyalty? Have you seriously tried searching for information - real, in-depth information on Google over the last year or so? You'll need lots of patience.

[superclown2]

It would be nice to know what the kids have to say about it, but Larry's not talking much these days and I can't remember the last time I heard from Sergey. I used to believe in google, you knew that Larry and Sergey believed in what they were doing and saying, they just wanted to build a search engine. Now it's a monster, a machine and I think it's out of their control and I think it's making them sick what it's become.

If they feel sick about something that's making them billions then their standards are unusual indeed. I wouldn't recommend describing them as 'kids' to their faces though.

[timwilliams]

A - because it stops people wasting their time which would be better used on improving their sites and in turn is better for google (i.e. B).

I think the founders are still in control and very proud.

I see, so in your opinion google would be willing to show substandard search results to their users in an effort to change the behavior of website owners but NOT to generate more revenue or to change the behavior of their users. Interesting, I wonder where they draw the line...

[claaarky]

No, what I said was Penguin and all other aspects of googles ranking system are aimed improving their users' experience because that produces more ad revenue.

I dont think anyone can say googles results are worse because a penguin hit site is not there. I think quality trumps everything, so high quality sites that people really love should be more resilient to something like penguin even if they've done the same spammy link building as a lower quality site. It would take much worse behaviour for a high quality site to suffer, because google wouldn't want to lose a great site it knew its' users want to find.

The problem is how we determine what a quality site is. That's all in the stats for each site and we only have access to our own stats. It's not something one person can reliably judge with their eyes.

[timwilliams]

I think quality trumps everything

I'm curious as to what you base this on. The fact of the matter is that a manual action trumps everything. A penguin manual action is a negative movement of a site based on factors that have nothing to do with the onsite quality of the subject website.

[claaarky]

For example, if amazon were to buy 1,000 spammy back links I think they would be less likely to have any problems with penguin than an unknown site doing the same thing which perhaps has a record for pushing the limits on SEO. In short, I think if your site is important to googles users you are less likely to suffer for any indiscretions.

Just my opinion though, I have no evidence to back this up.

[timwilliams]

if amazon were to buy 1,000 spammy back links I think they would be less likely to have any problems

I would disagree with that, I think if 1000 spammy back links all with the same keyword anchor text were pointed at a page on amazon that page would get manually action-ed for that keyword. Would you be able to knock the amazon home page out of the serp for a search for amazon with a 1000 spammy links, no.

[kellyman]

I wrote about this 3 months ago, i said watch Google's next quarter earnings their gonna be massive.

Think about it Company's that relied on the web for their business model gets knocked back down, they still need to produce so the simple way is to demote the sites earning the bucks for free,

Great business mind there Google, forcing people to give you a piece of the pie and call it penguin. lets help the little guy! who infact pays very little to your revenue so you boost him up then drop him when he needs you so he has no choice but to pay ..

Grrrr

[Roaming Gnome]

Who clicks on Google ads anyway? A satisfied user or the frustrated one? That's a tricky question.

I'd think an unhappy one. Two or three clicks that don't deliver vs. an ad with the keyword phrase.

Hmmm....

[netmeg]

I'd think by those statements you don't know very much about PPC.

[timwilliams]

In general, sites that directly profit from traffic (e.g. search engine optimizers, affiliate programs, etc.) may need to provide more evidence of good faith before a site will be reconsidered.

That's a quote directly from google, on their reconsideration request page. The writing is on the wall, and now on google's website, for commercial websites in the organic results.

One of our direct competitors received a round of funding from, including others, google ventures. This company, who has been in bed with google for about a year now has few if any results in the serps. They only show up in adwords, heavily. They have put no effort into ranking organically. Why would a company that is in bed with google not even try to rank organically?

[Travis_Reed]

I'm with you that something's going on here, but Penguin didn't happen April, so it wasn't reflected in this quarter.
And then the most recent quarter came out and totally confused me.
(I realize I'm totally late to this party, but I found it through a link).
I've been interested in this issue for awhile now.