• Search Engine Land
  • Sections
    • SEO
    • SEM
    • Mobile
    • Local
    • Retail
    • Google
    • Bing
    • Social
    • Home
  • Follow Us
    • Follow
  • Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • More
  • Events
    • Follow
  • SUBSCRIBE

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Newsletters
  • Home
SEO

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


Google updates Penguin, says it now runs in real time within the core search algorithm

The latest announced release, Penguin 4.0, will also be the last, given its new real-time nature.

Barry Schwartz on September 23, 2016 at 8:00 am
  • More
google-penguin-2016k-ss-1920

After a nearly two year wait, Google’s Penguin algorithm has finally been updated again. It’s the fourth major release, making this Penguin 4.0. It’s also the last release of this type, as Google now says Penguin is a real-time signal processed within its core search algorithm.

Penguin goes real-time

Penguin is a filter designed to capture sites that are spamming Google’s search results in ways that Google’s regular spamming systems might not detect. Introduced in 2012, it has operated on a periodic basis.

In other words, the Penguin filter would run and catch sites deemed spammy. Those sites would remain penalized even if they improved and changed until the next time the filter ran, which could take months.

The last Penguin update, Penguin 3.0, happened on October 17, 2014. Any sites hit by it have waited nearly two years for the chance to be free.

Those long delays are now to be a thing of the past, according to Google. With this latest release, Penguin becomes real-time. As Google recrawls and reindexes pages — which happens constantly — those pages will be assessed by the Penguin filter. Pages will be caught and/or freed by Penguin as part of this regular process.

As Google said in its post:

With this change, Penguin’s data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after we recrawl and reindex a page.

Penguin becomes more page-specific, not sitewide only

Google also said this new Penguin algorithm is “more granular.” From its post:

Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.

Previously, Penguin was a sitewide penalty. So, does being “more granular” mean that it’s now page-specific? Yes and no, it seems. We asked Google for more clarity about this, and we were told:

It means it affects finer granularity than sites. It does not mean it only affects pages.

Our best interpretation of this statement is that Penguin might impact specific pages on a site, or it might impact sections or wide swaths of a site, while other pages are fine.

Google will no longer confirm Penguin update

Google also said with this update, it will no longer confirm future Penguin updates. That makes sense. Since it’s a constant process, there’s nothing to confirm.

Is Penguin fully live?

This real-time Penguin update is probably not fully live yet. It is now “rolling out,” Google said. Google didn’t tell us how long it may take to roll out, but I suspect it won’t take that long, maybe a couple of weeks. If Google regularly revisits your pages, then you should likely see the change quickly. If Google comes to your site more infrequently, it may take longer.

Some swore they saw this roll out yesterday, but Google would not confirm that.

Past Penguin updates

For history buffs, here’s the rundown on Penguin updates over time, as well as the impact they’ve had on queries, according to Google:

  • Penguin 1.0 on April 24, 2012 (impacting ~3.1% of queries)
  • Penguin 1.1 on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%)
  • Penguin 1.2 on October 5, 2012 (impacting ~0.3% of queries)
  • Penguin 2.0 on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)
  • Penguin 2.1 on Oct. 4, 2013 (impacting around 1% of queries)
  • Penguin 3.0 on October 17, 2014 (impacting around 1% of queries)
  • Penguin 4.0 & real-time on September 23, 2016

Penguin 4.0, Google would not give a specific number of the percentage of queries it impacted, mostly because the update is constantly happening and the percentage will constantly be changing.



About The Author

Barry Schwartz
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 SEM topics.

Related Topics

Channel: SEOGoogle: Algorithm UpdatesGoogle: PenaltiesGoogle: Penguin UpdateGoogle: SEOGoogle: Web Search

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

ATTEND OUR CONFERENCES

Lorem ipsum doler this is promo text about SMX events.

May 21-22, 2019: SMX London

Sept 30 - Oct 1, 2019: SMX Advanced Europe

November 18-19, 2019: SMX Paris

February 19-20, 2020: SMX West

March 18-19, 2020: SMX Munich

June 8-10, 2020: SMX Advanced

November 11-12, 2020: SMX East

×


Learn More About Our SMX Events

Gain new strategies and insights at the intersection of marketing, technology, and management. Our next conference will be held:

April 15-17, 2020: San Jose

October 6-8, 2020: Boston

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • The Ultimate Agency Guide for Choosing the Right Marketing Automation Vendor.pdf
  • How Good Partnerships Should Reduce Your Workflow
  • Digital Insights 2019: How marketers confront the obstacles of digital customer engagement
  • 14 Industry Experts on the Future of Attribution
  • The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Ad Spend from Invalid Traffic
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • Build Brand Humanity by Mastering Empathy at Scale
  • The Fantastic 5: Emerging strategies to drive conversions & growth
  • CCPA Goes Live in Weeks: Is your marketing measurement ready?
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Enterprise SEO Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO

Master the Science of SEO
Sign up for our NEW daily brief.
Search Engine Land
Download the Search Engine Land App on iTunes Download the Search Engine Land App on Google Play

Channels

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social

Our Events

  • SMX West
  • SMX London
  • SMX Advanced
  • SMX East
  • MarTech West
  • MarTech East

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • Search Marketing Expo
  • MarTech Conference

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Advertise
  • Marketing Services
  • Staff
  • Connect With Us

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Youtube
  • iOS App
  • Google Play

© 2019 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.