Penguin Refresh/Update - Hurry Up Google?

[totalodds]

As the whole SEO world and thousands of webmaster patiently twiidle their thumbs... It's seems Google are delaying refreshing it's latest "Penguin" algo update.

If we are putting "Penguin" in the same bracket as "Panda"
Then we should be seeing an update on average every 5-6 weeks.

Any Thoughts?.... How long are the going to make us wait?

T

[varun21]

I'm very certain that penguin is about external links only. And as such will run only as per a period which allows you time to take down backlinks. May be 6 months or an year etc.

[Robert Charlton]

totalodds - I made some comments on this thread that apply to your question....

Will Google penalize you if you remove links too fast?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4462495.htm [webmasterworld.com]

All this is conjecture... but I think that Penguin needs to be refreshed periodically, not in real time, in part because it's evaluating not just a page or a site, but (inter)linking signals over the entire network.

I assume that it's also looking at things like hidden redirects and historical signals... and all those extra signals require not only extra computation, but also some accumulation and comparison of data that can't be done on a realtime basis....

More discussion in the thread.

[aristotle]

Someone said that Google might offer a system that lets you disavow external links, so maybe that has caused a delay.

[idolw]

Someone said that Google might offer a system that lets you disavow external links, so maybe that has caused a delay.

First thing everyone will try is:
1/ OK, let's try some crap links. We can always disavow them later.
2/ Get paid links to the site on a scale.
3/ See if it works. If it does then keep getting those links.
4/ Not working? Rankings drop? Let's disavow the links.

I hate the idea. It will only be more work for us.

[1one1]

I heard that Google does backlink data refreshes every 2 weeks but are looking to increase the speed of that, so if you have dodgy links and remove them, you should see a positive change as quickly as 2 weeks.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

---

System: The following message was spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4480031.htm [webmasterworld.com] by tedster - 7:23 am on Jul 30, 2012 (EST -4)

---

My traffic spiked by roughly 25% on the day overall with all of the additional traffic starting to find my site starting in the evening, the morning was as expected. It continues into today.

- it's a sitewide increase, not a single page increase.
- it's an increase from Google only
- it's both organic and referral traffic from Google (images and web)

Unless a surge of people began looking up my site topic it has the feel of an update, has anyone else noticed any changes starting on the 29th?

[aristotle]

I heard that Google does backlink data refreshes every 2 weeks but are looking to increase the speed of that, so if you have dodgy links and remove them, you should see a positive change as quickly as 2 weeks.

Are you talking about the Pemguin part of the algorithm? That's what the OP of this thread asked about?

[SnowMan68]

I heard that Google does backlink data refreshes every 2 weeks but are looking to increase the speed of that, so if you have dodgy links and remove them, you should see a positive change as quickly as 2 weeks.

Do you have a source for this?

[Lady_K]

I would also like to know if you have the source which states the backlink data refreshes every 2 weeks.

I'm under the impression that we need a data refresh to recover from penguin, even if we make the necessary changes to our site & backlinks. I've made changes to my site and the backlinks which I think is enough to recover from penguin (hopefully!). I need a penguin refresh to happen though...

[diberry]

Unless a surge of people began looking up my site topic it has the feel of an update, has anyone else noticed any changes starting on the 29th?

YES. My Penguin-affected site is up 70% today (30th) compared to yesterday (29th). Sadly, even if that holds true through this evening, that would only represent a 5-10% recovery relative to what Penguin took away, but I'll take it.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Just to update my post above, it looks like a long time competitor of mine has been nuked out of the rankings and I'm picking up his slack. That doesn't preclude an update but it's an explanation.

[Wilburforce]

I heard that Google does backlink data refreshes every 2 weeks but are looking to increase the speed of that, so if you have dodgy links and remove them, you should see a positive change as quickly as 2 weeks.

I removed 2,300 suspect links (probably negative SEO by a competitor, all for main business term as anchor text) in May. 487 are still showing in WMT.

[Lady_K]

My penguin hit site hasn't moved at all, still on 49th page for it's main keyword.

Do you all agree that we need to wait on a refresh to see any improvement with our penguin hit sites? The reason I think this is that my website was on page 99 when penguin first hit in April, then after the May update, my website moved up to around the 49 page mark and has stayed around there since. I need another update to see if it's going to move up again.

[aristotle]

It will be interesting to see the effects of the next update. Some people have apparently made a lot of changes, such as revising pages and/or getting backlinks deleted. Others, like myself, have made no changes at all.

So it depends on what the next Penguin update includes. If it is only a "data refresh", then presumably only the site owners who made changes will see any effects. But if Google tweaks the Penguin part of the algorithm, then everyone should see some effects.

Also, I'm still wondering if the delay might be caused by work to develop a system that lets site owners disavow backlinks.

[Jez123]

@ aristotle I would be interested to hear what happens. I know others who have not done anything as well. I have removed some links, watered down the anchor text on others. Plus made a ton of changes to the site itself. I am now converrting the traffic I do get a lot better so if my site returns I can honestly say that something postive has come out of it.

Surely the will refresh it soon. Though I am not 100% convinced that a refresh will see any change I hope it does. I think that so many sites are creeping back up that that may be the way that recovery happens - but when does the creeping stop? I'll bet not at former levels.

[joomblaster]

Hello everybody in this room where and how do you know google will refresh penguin every 2 weeks? any in this room success out from penguin "jail"?

[tedster]

Hello joomblaster, and welcome to the forums.

The discussion here may be a bit confusing. One member is saying that backlinks are updated every two weeks - but that's not the same as saying how often Penguin USES the refreshed backlink data. In fact, he didn't make it clear whether he is talking about the link: operator or the Webmaster Tools data.

Here's what we do know for sure: there has been only one Penguin data refresh, on May 26. And that was a full month after the first Penguin run on April 24. We keep track of Google's major Updates here: [webmasterworld.com...]

Adding even more complication to the picture, Penguin clearly runs on a lot more than just backlinks. The discussions are all over the forum and you can find them using our Site Search [webmasterworld.com]

[varun21]

I'm certain Penguin is certainly majorly about backlinks (at least that's one of the signals that affected me). I have two popular sites. One is popular because of a software that I have been releasing for the last 5 years and had naturally gathered a lot of links from all sorts of sites/directories. Today if I use google to search for link:site it shows only 6 pages of links. Whereas WMT says 384,800 backlinks. So essentially WMT is able to give me an insight of the actual links and Google just tells me the ones that count. This leads me to believe that a lot of directories, low-quality sites were totally annihilated and/or their outgoing links devalued. I have seen this for both my sites of which one was affected by Penguin.

Is there any chance Google search would not show all the backlinks unlike WMT (which shows all backlinks)? I guess Penguin made those links disappear from the search page.

[tedster]

Is there any chance Google search would not show all the backlinks unlike WMT?

That has always been the case. In the beginning of Google, they only showed links over PR4. Then they changed and began showing a random sampling of links, and that's what they do today. Not only that, but the specific sampling of links they show publicly changes from time to time.

So we can't draw any conclusions from what we see with the link: operator searches.

[nickutis]

So we can't draw any conclusions from what we see with the link: operator searches.

It was always puzzling to me why google even have that operator in the first place.

[varun21]

I think the link: operator does tell us about the incoming links which G ranks or does find credible. Hope I'm right.

[nickutis]

I think the link: operator does tell us about the incoming links which G ranks or does find credible. Hope I'm right.

Well yes, it's a standard definition for this operator. But in real life it never shows you anything. If you have 1000 incoming links, you are lucky if google link: operator shows 1. But it usually shows 0 :)

[Lady_K]

I hope we don't have to wait much longer for this update. Would really like to see how it affects my site, since my site was badly affected by the first one.

[Rocka]

The widely fluctuating Google dance is somehow related to these refreshes ... either Google will inform us ahead of the refresh or after them. What do you feel?

[Lady_K]

I'm not even confident that Google will inform us of when a refresh is released, after all they didn't inform webmasters on twitter about panda 20, all they mentioned on twitter was the EMD update.

[aristotle]

Penguin worked so poorly that it's taking a long time to try to fix it. I think it might be better just to scrap it and start all over.

[Lady_K]

@aristotle

Were you affected by penguin too? If so, do you plan to start over? I'm not sure what to do with my site anymore. Starting over sounds like a good idea, unfortunately I can't really afford to get the site completely redesigned though.

[Jez123]

@ Lady_K. I would wait until the refresh (if it's soon that is) before a re launch of your site. A refresh of the algo will at least show us the way to go even if it'a not good news.

Out of interest (you may not have seen this) but how do your rankings look on foxstart.com mine look promising. I have tracked my site over the last few weeks on foxstart.com and it's rising in the SERPs but interestingly more recently penalised (if that's the right word) sites are dropping, as they are on the normal google search. For some reason it shows non penguin results but other algo changes ARE reflected in the results. If my site comes back to the rankings I see on this I will be happy. Probably not as strong as it was and some positions are worse, but some are better.

[Lady_K]

@Jez123

Thanks for the advice. I had planned to wait on the refresh, I'm just getting a little impatient I guess :-) You're right though, I'll wait for the refresh.

I had seen a post on this forum regarding the foxstart results, and I'm also very interested in this subject, as my site is currently sitting in the position it was in 'at it's best' before Google penguin was released in April. For my most competitive keyword, it is showing me on page 1 (number 9), this is the highest my site had ever ranked for that keyword in Google. As for my other keywords, these are ranking great in foxstart too. I would love if these were the results in Google after the next penguin refresh.