Google's Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates

Google’s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates

Mar 11, 2013 at 8:03pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced new updates with Google’s Penguin and Panda algorithms and new link network targets in 2013. Matt announced this during the SMX West panel, The Search Police.

Significant Penguin Update

Matt said that there will be a large Penguin update in 2013 that he thinks will be one of the more talked about Google algorithm updates this year. Google’s search quality team is working on a major update to the Penguin algorithm, which Cutts called very significant.

The last Penguin update we have on record was Penguin 3 in October 2012. Before that, we had Penguin 2 in May 2012 and the initial release in April.

So, expect a major Penguin release that may send ripples through the SEO industry this year.

A Panda Update Coming This Friday Or Monday

Matt also announced there will be a Panda algorithm update this coming Friday (March 15th) or Monday (March 18th). The last Panda update was version 24 on January 22nd, which is one of the longer spans of time between Panda refreshes we’ve seen in a long time.

Another Link Network Targeted

Matt Cutts confirmed that Google targeted a link network a couple weeks ago, and said Google will go after more in 2013. In fact, Matt said that they will release another update in the next week or two that specifically targets another large link network.

Postscript: See our important follow-up story, Google: Panda To Be Integrated Into The Search Algorithm (Panda Everflux).

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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http://www.facebook.com/mc.grady.100 Mathieu Chimei

This may seem like a silly question to some, but do I have to “clean up” no follow links to make sure I am not hit by Google penguin? I know Google doesn’t follow them for Page rank, but do they see them at all?
http://www.facebook.com/mc.grady.100 Mathieu Chimei

I guess the fact that Penguin is aimed at sites attempting to gain from links will be hit, so you would think this is only going to be do follow….yeh?
http://www.facebook.com/apex.pacific Apex Pacific

Matt Cutts Is a Liar ! Penguin and Panda Update Did Not Work ! Here is the proof:
http://www.apexpacific.com/blog/apex-internet-marketing-software/matt-cutts-is-a-liar.