Spheniscidae and Ailuropoda, more commonly known as Penguins and Pandas, are considered, by most, to be harmless creatures. But to SEOs, the cuddly image found in such films as ‘Happy Feet’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda’ is replaced with a darker meaning – both are codenames for two of the biggest systematic Google updates in the search giant’s history. And with Penguin 2.0 having launched in the latter half of May, many websites have felt the wrath of Google’s own Chilly Willy.
The Penguin update’s main goal is to attack sites that use ‘black hat SEO’ - underhand tricks designed to deliberately mislead the search engines, such as hidden text or suspicious linking strategies. In turn, it hopes to benefit ‘honest’ sites, especially those demonstrating newer trust signals, such as social shares, structured data and authorship. But despite these best intentions, the initial impact from the Penguin 2.0 update has been largely hurtful to many legitimate companies.
Google has officially stated that it will affect 2.3 per cent of all English-US queries and although its impact on the UK is unknown, it appears there is a huge amount of crossover. Econsultancy’s research found that well-known sites such as www.icelolly.com, www.comparethemarket.com and www.techradar.com have been some of the heaviest hit, despite all being highly reputable. And while sites like www.guardian.co.uk and www.gocompare.com all saw major uplifts, many spammy websites underwent significant ranking improvements. In particular, payday loans sites seemed to benefit with Top 20 pages from major banks like www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/loans/personal-loan, www.nationwide.co.uk/loans/ and www.natwest.com/personal/loans.ashx - as well as a Wikipedia entry – vanishing out of the Top 100 for “loans”, while dubious sites like www.ineed-loans.co.uk and www.kaypaydayloansuk.co.uk rocketed into the Top 10 out of nowhere.
Despite these teething problems, MEC applauds Google’s attempt to improve the search results; not only should it help users find the most relevant content, but it will make businesses aware of the need to update their search strategy and get on-board with many of the changes needed to operate as a successful web brand.