All Things Digital

Google Delays Penguin Update

Looks like the search giant is not in a hurry to release the next Penguin update this year end. With holidays looming over, it could happen only next year.

But what was special about this update? This Penguin update was supposed to be a real-time version of the algorithm. That means, if Google discovers a particular link attributed to your site is removed (whether it’s a good link or a bad one), the Penguin algorithm will process it in real time and the consequent changes in ranking will also be effected almost real time. This sounds like a bad news on the face of it. But if you look at the positive side, a new link that you gain for your site also gets processed that much faster and gets rewarded in real time. So Webmasters and SEOs engaged in optimizing the site need not wait for months or years for their efforts to be reflected in the ranking.

The real question is whether businesses are ready to face real time changes to their SEO efforts. This could affect especially those businesses who do not maintain an ongoing relation with sites and domains from whom they have gained links. The practice of SEO itself may undergo a tremendous change. For instance, you could recover from a penalty much faster. This means that if the Penguin update imposes penalty on you, then, after you do the improvements you need not wait for 6 or 12 months, since the changes are recognized real time. On the flip side (and actually better for the SEO industry), Webmasters who use temporarily created websites to gain ranks and then move on, will have much less time to benefit, making the whole exercise futile.

But for those who are serious about building valuable long term SEO campaigns, Penguin may provide real-time answers on what kind of link activity may help their sites. It will help in deciding the quality and nature of links to be after in order to gain targeted rankings.

For more details on Penguin update visit Search Engine Land.