Google Penguin 4.0: what impact on SEO in e-commerce?
Google finally rolled out its Google 4.0 algorithm update at the end of last week.
Penguin is now part of Google’s core algorithm, penalising websites that use various black-hat link schemes to manipulate search rankings.
Other important changes include:
- Penguin data is refreshed in real time, so any changes will be made as soon as the affected page has been recrawled and reindexed.
- Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking of the offending page, rather than affecting the whole site.
Here are the opinions of some experts about this update, from Search Engine Watch:
Kevin Gibbons, Managing Director at Blue Glass:
Of course Google’s algorithm is always a moving target – but it is becoming harder to be manipulated at scale. In some verticals it can even be a game of whoever doesn’t have the worst backlinks might win. Aim to tell your story via content, data-driven analysis and knowledge – and amplify to a targeted audience via multiple channels; social media, paid search, digital PR etc.
Gerald Murphy, Client Service Manager at EMEA at BrightEdge:
I think that, with the rise of AI, Google will soon be able to understand links more. A flower shop on Valentines Day, for example, will get away with more spam-like links but this won’t be the case in September. This most effecient way to analyse this update is to breakdown links by category, sub category, and page level, and then compare this with data, such as, visits, average blended rank, and revenue, for example.
Nikolay Stoyanov, freelance SEO consultant at niksto.com:
After more than 700 days of waiting we can finally rest assured that whatever SEO mistakes we make we will be able to quickly fix afterwards. Another great change with Penguin 4.0 is the fact that it became more “granular”. This means that whatever penalties hit our sites from now on they will impact separate pages on the site and not the whole domain in general. Write well researched and useful content and build quality links to it. That’s it! Nothing’s changed.
