How has Penguin 3.0 resonated globally? Contributor Philip Petrescu of Advanced Web Ranking shares data on the algorithm update's impact.
There’s been a lot of debate about how big or small the latest Penguin 3.0 update was. This post won’t offer a measure, but will assemble the information we’ve gathered and suggest what may happen next.
I believe that the indisputable truth about Google’s updates belongs to Google only, and for all that we know, Penguin 3.0 impacted less than 1% of the English language queries. However, as with anything related to SEO, we can only take what we have and work ourselves out of the dark.
So, whenever big algorithmic changes are made, we gather every bit of information we can, then try to put the pieces together in order to understand what happened and what to expect next.
At my company, AWR, we have recently been performing some studies of our own on the impact of algorithm changes with the development of our latest Google Algorithm Changes tool.
According to the data we processed, was saw a very distinct fluctuation in rankings determined by Penguin 3.0, with the peak in ranking changes being recorded on October 18 and October 19. Overall, the changes came in at 4.4 on our scale of ranking changes.
For comparison, the highest ranking changes factor we’ve ever seen with our tool was 5.6 during theHTTPS/SSL as Ranking Signal update.
Some background: The Ranking Changes Factor is a metric we have calculated based on the changes we’ve seen in our data set, which includes 10,000 keywords and 500,000 URLs across various industries. The data is updated daily and shows the severity of the changes.
The Overall section (pictured above) shows the Ranking Changes Factor, which is computed using a proprietary algorithm. The Top 10-50 sections show the number of websites that have had their rankings changed (compared to the previous date) and the percentage (how many websites were affected from the total number of websites).
The more websites are affected, the higher the importance of the algorithm update. The blue line shows the organic visibility of all the websites that we track, rising when the sites experience higher rankings and lowering when the rankings drop.
Penguin 3.0 Hit Harder On Low-Ranking Websites
In addition to calculating the Ranking Changes Factor, we also wanted to take a closer look at the update’s impact across the search results spectrum. And so, we found that the turbulence generated by the update was heavier for pages that appeared beyond the second page of results.
Specifically, only 1 in 10 websites on the first page of search results (top 10) experienced changes that moved them 5 positions (screenshot-1). However, when you expand the scope to include the top 50 results, the number of websites impacted was considerably higher at 36.2% (screenshot-2).
The update did not generate a large number of dramatic changes within search engine results pages (SERPs). According to our data, fewer than 1 in 10 websites (7.7%) that ranked on the first page dropped by more than 10 positions after Penguin 3.0:
If this number were higher, we would be talking about disasters. A Top 10 listing experiencing a drop of more than 10 positions is kind of a big deal, while lower rankings are more volatile by nature.
Penguin Behaved Differently In Other Countries
All languages and regions around the world were affected by Penguin, as the update launched globally. However, what we found is that Penguin 3.0 behaved differently in countries outside of the U.S.
While on Google.com (in the U.S.) the damages of Penguin 3.0 were immediately seen on October 18, the update rolled out to other countries a bit more slowly. On Google UK, for example, the peak in turbulence was seen on October 20th:
Or take the case of Google Germany, where Penguin 3.0 did not lead to any big changes in search results:
Up until now, we have only processed data for a couple of countries, more as an experiment at first. But it proved to be an interesting direction for moving forward with our research, the data being extremely useful for people outside of U.S. to use as benchmark in times of ranking turmoil.
The Bottom Line
How much your site was impacted by Penguin 3.0 depends on the industry you’re in, the rankings you have, and the competition you’re sharing the SERP with (and potentially lots of other unknown factors).
You will never know for sure what happened unless you keep your eyes on Google. We will certainly do the same and share it with you if we spot anything out of the ordinary.
I hope you will share your thoughts, too, in the comments below and via Twitter (we’re using the hashtag #gac for Google Algorithm Changes).
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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Google Releases Penguin 3.0 — First Penguin Update In Over A Year
Google confirms that a new version of its Penguin filter aimed at fighting spam went live on Friday
Google has confirmed to Search Engine Land that it updated its Penguin filter on Friday. Penguin targets sites deemed to be spammy, especially those found in violation of Google’s guidelines about linking.
Some noticed major changes in Google search results beginning late Friday night US time and speculated that this was due to the long-awaited Penguin Update that Google had said to expect this month.
Google verified to us today that this has happened, when we asked about it. Google hasn’t yet given more details on the percentage of search results the latest version of Penguin has impacted or if there were any major changes made to it since the last release. We’ll update if we get these details.
Penguin Releases Over Time
This is the sixth release of Penguin. Google itself hasn’t given it a number, but we’re calling it Penguin 3.0 because it’s been so long since the last release of Penguin that it’s worth counting as a major release.
Here are dates of all Penguin releases:
- 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)
Note that Penguin 1.1 and Penguin 1.2 were previously reported by us as Penguin 2 and Penguin 3, because Google itself hadn’t given them numbers, so we did. But when the fourth release happened, Google declared that to be Penguin 2.0. We’ve renumbered to fit in with Google’s belated numbering sequence.
The latest Penguin release is one of the most anticipated algorithm updates in Google’s history. Some publishers have been desperately waiting for the refresh that arrives just over a year since the last.
Getting Caught & Freed By Penguin
The publishers have been anxious because of the way Penguin works. If you’re hit by it, even if you make changes, you have to wait until the next release to see if your changes have done what Google wanted.
Publishers hit by the last version of Penguin — back in October 2013 — have been waiting until now to see if actions they’re tried such as removing spammy links have worked. If so, they’re likely seeing some improvement in traffic this weekend. If not, they have to try making more changes and then waiting until however long it takes for Google to release Penguin again.
By the way, for those who tried disavowing bad links, if you did that within the last three weeks, that was too late for this Penguin update. Our article from a talk Google gave at our SMX conference earlier this month explains more.
Do keep in mind that some people may see ranking drops but not actually be hit by Penguin. That’s because if Penguin causes a wide range of links to be discounted, those links will no longer pass along the credit or act as “votes” as they once might have.
Sites that gained from these fake votes — as Google would consider them — lose that credit and thus potentially visibility, even though they weren’t penalized by Google directly.
Google has suggested that with the latest version of Penguin, it also would have a new system allowing for refreshes to happen more frequently. Time will tell on that — the count starts now.
Postscript: Google has confirmed that the Penguin roll out is complete as of Monday morning, October 20th.
Postscript #2: Google has finally shared more details with us on this Penguin update including it is still rolling out, impacting 1% of queries. Learn more over here.
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