Penguin 2.0 is upon us - May 22, 2013

[viral]

Matt has announced Penguin 2.0 (Penguin 4). Either way it is out there and affecting.

Is anyone noticing much movement in the serps? I personally haven't seen much flux but Mozcast seems to be feeling something.

[mattcutts.com...]

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 12:12 pm (utc) on May 23, 2013]
[edit reason] added quote [/edit]

[ColourOfSpring]

however was I thought was wierd, was that that 2 wordquery like "widget city" on the first page before us were a page with url. facebook/widget-city/

I saw the exact same thing on a popular adjective-widget search this morning. In position 5 on google.com is a Facebook page with 20 likes of a music band that is actually called the same name as the search keyphrase (adjective-widget). MIGHT make sense if it was a popular Facebook page, but 20 likes? And this is a popular keyword search in this niche - a buying keyphrase. Now we have some obscure amateur band at no.5. Also seeing a 404 at no.2 for this search. As with Penguin 1.0 here's what's likely to happen:-

- lots of weird results that will slowly be fixed by Google
- brand-weight will be dialed up to replace the weird results
- if you're losing now, you'll be losing later. Don't get false hope that your site that's losing now and Google will "fix things" and you will gain later - almost certainly you won't

I base my above points based on Penguin 1.0. About 3 weeks of churning results, then commercial results settle down.

[helenp]

In position 5 on google.com is a Facebook page with 20 likes of a music band that is actually called the same name as the search keyphrase (adjective-widget). MIGHT make sense if it was a popular Facebook page, but 20 likes?

I must disagree, as the likes nowaday are sometimes "spammy" as many companies pay ads per clic in facebook saying for exampel, if you like this clic like, I seen competitors with more than 14.000 likes using those ads, while my site has only 180 but they are natural.
Isnt this a new kind of spam? Or should I do the same?
Its good as 14.000 will see what you post, but for google to use those likes as a quality meter, I dont think google should.

[viral]

@ColourOfSpring I completely agree with those points. There are very few non-brand site recovery stories.

[muzza64]

Site previously affected by Panda but untouched by Penguin is today down for lots of keywords by anything from several places to several pages.

Some of the terms affected have had no link building done on them, ever.

Interestingly, the terms least affected (or not affected at all) are those where the term is used in navigation (even if link building has been done for that phrase).

To me this looks like a boost for positive signs rather than a penalty for negative signs.....if that makes sense.

[ColourOfSpring]

I must disagree, as the likes nowaday are sometimes "spammy" as many companies pay ads per clic in facebook saying for exampel, if you like this clic like, I seen competitors with more than 14.000 likes using those ads, while my site has only 180 but they are natural.
Isnt this a new kind of spam? Or should I do the same?
Its good as 14.000 will see what you post, but for google to use those likes as a quality meter, I dont think google should.

Well my emphasis was on "MIGHT" make sense - as in, "I can sort of understand why Google would do that given Google's previous weird decision processes". When I try to understand Google, it's like trying to understand an insane person. You have to get inside their head somewhat, follow THEIR logic (not that it makes sense), and then reason as to why they do what they do.

Anyway, I think a clearly unpopular amateur band's Facebook page (I mean, 20 Likes...come on) ranking for a popular keyphrase that happens to be their band name - when that keyphrase is going to be 99.9999% searched for the actual adjective-widget NOT an obscure band....is clearly one of those early Penguin errors we saw a lot of last year.

Yes I also agree that social signals are pretty easy to game too - and I'm not talking about buying Likes (which tend to get deleted anyway) - it's the whole mechanical marketing process - the like me and I will like you thing - it's just more means-to-an-end mechanical marketing. However, a very low number of Likes is a clear indicator that the page isn't all that popular...

ah well, maybe I'm wrong - with Penguin, it's not even good to be right anyway.... :/

[sem4u]

I have seen an increase in rankings for almost all of the keywords that I monitor. However, there are still an amazing amount of blatant spam sites ranking really well.

[viral]

I think most of these Facebook pages are ranking because of the copious linkjuice Facebook delivers to all it's peripheral pages. Add to that the fact that Google would consider FB a very strong Brand.

[johnApaul]

my site is gone.. i hope it is just going to be for a couple of days until it assesses

[IngoZ]

Minor changes, we need a ... Wolf, to eliminate advertorials and paid links.

[FrankTheRank]

Interestingly there are not so many complainants this time as with the first Penguin.

Results in my niche are dominated by big brand clusters - worse than before, despite MC saying they were going to tackle this.

Time to educate the people and kids not to support or use the tax dodging, economy breaking, anti competitive, big evil one.
Only people power will show Schmidt et al what its like to lose traffic.

[turbocharged]

I am still seeing tumblr, webs and other free splog sites ranking. Did this update skip over subdomains?

Interesting that some webmaster related queries I am conducting have forum posts ranking in the top positions. Many of the posts are in broken English and have many misspellings. Is Google trying to send a signal to webmasters?

[muzza64]

Hmmm, surprisingly quiet on here.

2.3% of searches affected according to MC which is actually not much. If this update was meant to be the biggest talking point of the year then perhaps we're in for a less eventful year than suggested in MC's "What to expect in the coming months" video.

[viral]

I am seeing some interesting results.
A page on my site that used to rank for a term has gone replaced by the category link that has the article in it?

This is a site with 5 backlinks total. 3 of which are nofollow. It was ranking for a very cryptic keyword and it is not a site I care too much about. It is just interesting that this would happen.

[Shepherd]

This is a site with 5 backlinks total. 3 of which are nofollow. It was ranking for a very cryptic keyword

What's the anchor text for the 2 do-follow links? Are they both "very cryptic keyword"? If so, and if penguin is looking at anchor text ratios, this would be behavior in line with what I have seen for penguinized sites, page that is/was target by link building is gone but some other page from the site ranks, usually not as well though.

[spunkle]

In my niche on the web there has been no change to the point that if Cutts had not announced the penguin update I would never have known it even happened, i think his 2.3% queries affected is rubbish.

the same old black hat sites are still at the top, still with lots of spam links etc, very disappointing update, especially how much Cutts said this was going to be epic.

[purplekitty]

In position 5 on google.com is a Facebook page with 20 likes of a music band that is actually called the same name as the search keyphrase (adjective-widget). MIGHT make sense if it was a popular Facebook page, but 20 likes?

I saw that pre-Penguin 2.0 and they're still there now post-Penguin 2.0. Facebook pages ranking on the 2nd and 3rd pages of the serps that have long since been abandoned with a handful of followers, but contained the keyword in the Facebook url.

For my industry, there has been no discernable change at all. All the same players are right where they were, including the pinterest boards.

I must disagree, as the likes nowaday are sometimes "spammy" as many companies pay ads per clic in facebook saying for exampel, if you like this clic like, I seen competitors with more than 14.000 likes using those ads, while my site has only 180 but they are natural.
Isnt this a new kind of spam? Or should I do the same?
Its good as 14.000 will see what you post, but for google to use those likes as a quality meter, I dont think google should.

So advertising using Facebook ads is now considered spammy? Is advertising using Adwords also considered spammy? Since when is advertising spam?

I advertise on Facebook and utilizing that, in addition to other ways people find and like my page, I now have 38,000 followers. Google could easily use the activity on my Facebook page from all of my followers as a quality meter should it so choose.

I don't really think Facebook pages are actually the most relevant webpages on a subject, tho.

[givememercy]

I've never seen so much spam in my 10 years of watching google like a hawk.

[Whitey]

We shall see how long it takes the serps to stop the flux

Approx 12 hours into this, and there is quite a bit of churn, and large downward movement on some terms / sites I watch.

Interesting that in the 4-5 days preceding the roll out some lift was seen on those sites , around 15-20%.

Other sites reported to me are seeing traffic lift.

As usual brands seem to be surfacing to almost 2 pages deep, with some sort of immunity. Another 12 hours might provide some stability to report on.

[viral]

@whitey Yeah you are right the results I mentioned above seem to have changed somewhat again. For the cryptic keyword I now own position 1 with my category url and position 2 with the actual post?

I think what I have learned is to just wait a few days and see how it all pans out.

[Gmorgan]

I am seeing some utter rubbish at the top of the results. In our market, a local spammer (thousands of link farm, blog roll and comment spam links) is now number one, up from page 2. The decent businesses have all fallen a little.

[jammy8891]

This feels like the relief you get when you dread a school exam for weeks and it turns out to be easier than you expected

[edited by: jammy8891 at 2:37 pm (utc) on May 23, 2013]

[taberstruths]

So far it has been pretty anti-climactic. Promised a fireworks show and all we got were stink bombs.

[helenp]

For an international site its very complicated to follow,
we were bad in usa, regular in uk and good in ie,
now looks like results keeps changing, suppose the update is rolling out.
As a matter of fact for a 2 keyword search we are now better in us than in uk, and first in ie, but for a 3 keyword search we are better both in us and co.uk, however still a lot left to get the toposition we had before, but yesterday as was wednesday we had more visitors than past wednesday, being sundays, mondays and tuesday the hottest days in our niche.

[Splugged]

I had some huge "jumps" in the past few days (supposed Penguin), from #250+ to top 10. But traffic is still down...

[jammy8891]

Seeing the SERP for a recently axed client fluctuating quite a lot - 4 new entries in the top 10 including 2 major brands. Strangely a forum post is appearing top!

[backdraft7]

Plenty of positive moves and newly recovered terms, but so far not translating into much traffic. This is also the slowest week of the year with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Hope this marks an upturn for all legit sites.

[Alex997]

Holy plummet Batman!

Pretty much all keywords have dived from top of page 1 to page 3+. Average ranking across 30 high KEI keywords was about 10, now averaging around 35 mark.

Don;t do anything blackhat - dont pay for links - have great unique content on the site - have good-looking backlink profile - no warnings in Google Web Master.

Hopefully we are just the first to drop and everyone else will catch up soon!

[Ralph_Slate]

I am under the impression that Penguin was a site-wide authority devaluation. Maybe Matt Cutts' comment implies that it will only apply to sub-sections of a site instead.

[taberstruths]

Panda is sitewide. Penguin is on a per page basis. According to Cutts, Penguin 1.0 was home page only. Penguin 2.0 goes deeper.

[scottsonline]

Some are getting crushed today.

In looking at their link profiles clear and heavy buying of links to subpages. Lots of high pr semi related blogger and Wordpress blogs with a sentence paragraph and keywords. Crushed as in vanished from the first three pages!

Still the biggest update I've seen. One or two escaped probably because they have so many links from so many domains. This update didnt get them.....yet.