Skip to main content

Is Google Testing The Penguin 4.0 Algorithm?


 
Penguin 4.0 launch soon
I think we are on the verge of seeing Penguin 4.0 launch soon at Google - I think we are just about there. I know, I know, it's been a while. I have seen some chatter in the industry, on and off chatter, over the past 12 hours or so, that people are noticing some drastic changes with the Google search rankings on and off.
It can be nothing, it can be a blip, it can be a different algorithm or it can be people making stuff up - but it also can be Google testing Penguin 4.0 to a limited set of searchers.
The folks at WebmasterWorld over the past 12 hours or so have been asking about it:
JS Harris, a senior Webmaster World member said:
I have a small list of 10 distinct keywords for my site that I check when I wonder if a major update has occurred. The bottom few results on page one generally come and go but the top spots stay immortal. They stay there, that is, until there is a major update. I'm only ever mildly surprised when I see a would be contender for immortality disappear but it's usually because they've become frustrated with 'almost ranked' status(below the fold) and made major changes, which didn't help.
9/10 of the immortals have changed, in my opinion this has been a major update(affecting roughly 1% of queries, no doubt). Penguin perhaps?
Another person said:
Yesterday, I was ranked #2 for another brands keyword. Today, I am ranked in both position 7 & 8 for 2 separate articles... basically on my website I have a "vendors" page which has all their products listed, and then links to information specific to their products (more in depth). I did not take into account the confusion it would cause to Google, I would suspect it fairly easy to distinguish in this day and age...
Martin Ice Web, another senior member also noticed traffic and algorithm changes in rankings.
I have some recent comments on my Google webmaster report with webmasters saying "yes something is rolling on. One of my website got hit really badly." Another said "I think there is an update happening too. Seen some serious movement on a few keywords, some good, some bad."
It would not surprise me if this is Google testing Penguin in the wild. If so, and all is good, we may see a Penguin 4.0 release this weekend or next? Wishful thinking?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Intel launches website to help gamers on integrated graphics get a boost in gaming performance

Integrated graphics solutions won’t get you far when it comes to gaming, but they’ve evolved to the point that you can actually get decent frame rates in relatively modern games with the right graphics settings. Looking to remove some of the guesswork for gamers on a budget, Intel has set up a site compiling the optimal settings for a bunch of titles based on your Intel IGP. To get started users must head to gameplay.intel.com and manually select their CPU. Intel will then show you a selection of games that are playable with your chip’s integrated graphics solution, or you can manually search for a particular title, after which you are presented with a screenshot of the in game optimizations and settings recommended by Intel. Intel doesn’t mention what kind of performance you can expect, nor what other hardware was used in their test system. But it’s still a good starting point for anyone wanting to find out what games are playable on a given IGP. While providing ga...

eBay Admits Google Penalty Had A "Dramatic Impact" On Earnings

Back in May we reported that eBay had some sort of penalty that hit their Google search visibility by about 50%. That is major but now we somewhat know how major. Danny Sullivan reports on Search Engine Land that it may have costed them $200 million. On the eBay earnings call yesterday, eBay’s chief financial officer Bob Swan said : Now, let’s turn to the Marketplaces business. Marketplaces delivered $2.2 billion in revenue, which grew 6%, GMV grew 8%, and operating margin declined 340 basis points. It was a challenging quarter. As John indicated, we got off to a good start, but we had significant obstacles late May.The combination of the cyberattack and the Google SEO had an immediate and dramatic impact on GMV growth. June GMV growth was 7% driven by slower active buyer growth and lower conversion. In light of these events, we have made significant investments to get eBay users reengaged, including couponing, seller incentives and increased marketing spend... ...

Why Google Will Rank Facts in the Future

In 2012, Penguin and Panda changed the relationship between SEO and search rankings. The impact felt by those algorithm updates, however, could be dwarfed by Google's current quest to judge websites by their factual accuracy and truthfulness, as opposed to ranking pages based on links. f Google researchers have their way, we may soon look back and laugh at the time when search engines ranked web pages based on link-driven popularity instead of factual content. According to New Scientist , a team of Google researchers is currently working toward a future where search engines judge websites not on the number of other sites that trust them enough to link to them, but by the accuracy of their content. Exogenous vs. Endogenous Credibility Google researchers are brilliant, so they use words like "exogenous" to describe signals that come from outside a web page, such as hyperlink structure. They use words like "endogenous" to describe signa...