{"id":34133,"date":"2014-10-22T12:09:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T19:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/?p=34133"},"modified":"2014-12-15T09:38:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T17:38:11","slug":"penguin-3-update-underwhelming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/penguin-3-update-underwhelming\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguin 3.0 Update is Overwhelmingly Underwhelming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguins-800x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-34167 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguins-800x800-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"penguins-800x800\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguins-800x800-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguins-800x800-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguins-800x800.jpg 395w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>For 12-plus months, organic search marketers\u00a0have been waiting for the Penguin 3.0 update that would allow <strong>reformed\u00a0<\/strong>corner-cutting\u00a0clients to claim full penalty recovery and regain SERP rank. With six months between updates set as the standard through 2012 and 2013, a full 12-month cycle between updates created quite the build up for Penguin 3.0.<\/p>\n<p>So, when an <a title=\"Search Engine Land Penguin 3.0 Update Announement\" href=\"http:\/\/selnd.com\/1t9QQl7\" target=\"_blank\">Penguin 3.0 update<\/a> was announced by Search Engine Land on October 19, significant\u00a0SERP rank fluctuation was expected. Instead, what we\u2019ve seen in the six\u00a0days since the update can only be described as overwhelmingly underwhelming.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Penguin\u00a03.0: What We\u2019ve Seen In the First 6 Days<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In a post on Google+, Google UK\u00a0Webmaster Trends Analyst\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+PierreFar\/posts\/NURBpsNpef4\" target=\"_blank\">Pierre Far<\/a>\u00a0confirmed that the\u00a0\u201cupdate\u201d (referred to as a\u00a0\u201crefresh\u201d twice in the body of the post) started rolling out on Friday, October 17. Wording the change as a\u00a0&#8220;refresh&#8221; in the body text\u00a0gives us the impression that the event we&#8217;re witnessing this week is\u00a0a minor algorithm reiteration more comparable to the\u00a0quiet\u00a0release of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/google-penguin-2-1\/\">Penguin 2.1<\/a> than the massive release of Penguin 2.0.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/mozcast.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mozcast<\/a> barometer which monitors fluctuation in Google\u2019s rankings and reports volatile conditions as hot, stormy weather,\u00a0showed a temperature well over 100 degrees when Penguin 2.0 was launched in October 2013. Currently the Mozcast is showing a comfortable 71 degrees at the time of this posting, and an actual <em>decrease<\/em> in instability between Friday, October 17 (when the update was announced), and Saturday, October 18.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>At this point the analysis we\u2019re seeing from our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seotoolset.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SEOToolSet ranking\u00a0tool<\/a>\u00a0aligns completely with the comfortable, stable Mozcast forecast: we\u2019re seeing very little SERP fluctuation \u2013 for better or worse. In general, we have seen neither significant penalty removal or penalty increases. <strong>It was thought that sites would show marked recovery for repenting this last year while those continuing their spammy ways would see increases in ranking drops. We have seen neither.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><strong>Speculations: Why Release an Update That\u2019s Not Really an Update? <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>With so much anticipation leading up to the long overdue (<a title=\"Does Google Have a Responsibility to Refresh Its Penguin Algorithm?\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1q6I14S\" target=\"_blank\">in our opinion<\/a>) release of Penguin 3.0, we can\u2019t help but wonder: after a year, why would Google release a Penguin \u201cupdate\u201d that is so insignificantly affecting so many?<\/p>\n<p>Here are four speculations we\u2019ve cooked up in our internal discussions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One theory\u00a0is that the public was getting antsy and Google took this recent action to appease a vocal industry.\u00a0In this scenario we posit that Google,\u00a0overwhelmed with millions of disavow requests, has yet to figure out a meaningful way to use the abundance of disavow data.\u00a0If the\u00a0elongated\u00a0lapse in time between 2.0 and 3.0 updates is\u00a0the driving catalyst for the update we\u2019re seeing this week, then this week&#8217;s update may reflect the best they could do to throw us a bone, so to speak.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Another speculation shifts the blame toward the upcoming holiday season; reasonably, Google doesn\u2019t want to create mass instability in the SERPs right before Black Friday ushers in the biggest online shopping season of the year. In this case, a bigger shakeup could be coming with a Penguin 3.1 update roll out just after the holiday season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A\u00a0third speculation takes Google at its word that the update is still rolling out, and the U.S. market will see a\u00a0bigger impact in the days to come. In the above-mentioned Google+ announcement, Pierre Far says, \u201cIt\u2019s a slow worldwide rollout, so you may notice it settling down <em>over the next few weeks<\/em>\u201d (emphasis ours). <a title=\"Penguin 3.0 Finally Updates \u2013 Google Hits Homepages, Affiliates &amp; 301 Redirect Spam\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thesempost.com\/penguin-3-0-finally-updates-google-hits-homepages-affiliates-301-redirect-spam\" target=\"_blank\">Jennifer Slegg reports<\/a> that the Penguin 3.0 update was rolled out on international Google sites Google.co.uk, Google.de and Google.fr,before roll out on U.S. sites. In other words, there still could be a tiny glimmer of hope that Penguin 3.0 is in fact <em>still rolling out<\/em>, and will begin to affect U.S. sites with more gusto in coming weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The fourth and most pessimistic speculation suggests that this update-slash-refresh may actually be a sign of things to come; what if Google aims to make cheaters pay for their crimes with an unforgettable punishment, as Bruce Clay, Inc. Senior SEO Analyst Robert Ramirez proposed speculatively in an\u00a0article last month,\u00a0<a title=\"Does Google Have a Responsibility to Refresh Its Penguin Algorithm\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1q6I14S\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Does Google Have a Responsibility to Refresh Its Penguin Algorithm<\/em><\/a><em>?<\/em> What if this update is a sign that penalties for black hat marketing techniques may be in the initial phase of an exponential increase,\u00a0evolving into website death sentences with no hope for the penalized to ever fully recover?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What Now? We Wait and See<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>With a substantial lack of data to show Penguin 3.0 significantly impacting the SERP space, or an at all, really, we can only continue to wait and speculate among ourselves.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34160\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34160\" style=\"width: 259px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguin-3-underwhelms-3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34160 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguin-3-underwhelms-3-259x300.png\" alt=\"penguin-3-underwhelms-3\" width=\"259\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguin-3-underwhelms-3-259x300.png 259w, https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/penguin-3-underwhelms-3.png 370w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34160\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/fod\/201259829\/in\/photostream\/\">Fod Tzellos<\/a> (CC BY 2.0), modified.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If above-mentioned speculations one, two, or three are true (or near truth), the seismic Penguin update we\u2019ve been holding our collective breath for could still, very well, be on the horizon. This means hope could still be in the cards for former corner-cutters who have been working hard to prune their backlink profiles and waiting patiently for the Penguin update that would result in penalty resolution.<\/p>\n<p>If the more dramatic fourth speculation is closer to true, we\u2019re in for a real game change. In the <a title=\"Search Traffic portion of their Webmaster Tools Help center\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1s4R2eY\" target=\"_blank\">Search Traffic portion of their Webmaster Tools Help<\/a>, Google goes to great lengths to teach webmasters how to disavow unnatural links and correct manual link penalties. We like to believe all this training and effort means something and that Google really does want what\u2019s best for your site, and for the greater good. For that reason, we choose not to put too much weight on the Penguin-3.0-as-eternal-death-sentence speculation.<\/p>\n<p>But, still, it all boils down to waiting and seeing.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that something has to give sooner than later.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been waiting over a year to see Google refresh the algorithmic elements that manage the analysis and judgment of backlink profiles so that reformers\u00a0can see rank recovery. What we saw this week just wasn\u2019t <em>that<\/em> update.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s to hoping <em>that<\/em> update is coming our way&#8230;soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For 12-plus months analysts have been waiting for the Penguin 3.0 update that would allow reformed corner-cutting clients to claim full penalty recovery and regain SERP rank. With six months between updates set as the standard through 2012 and 2013, a full 12-month cycle between updates has created quite the build-up for Penguin 3.0.<\/p>\n<p>So, when an October 17, 2014 Penguin 3.0 update was announced by Search Engine Land on October 19, much SERP rank fluctuation was expected. Instead, what we\u2019ve seen in the five days since the update can only be described as overwhelmingly underwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>Read more of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/penguin-3-update-underwhelming\">Penguin 3.0 is Overwhelmingly Underwhelming<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":34167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,1199],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<title>BruceClay - Penguin 3.0 Update is Overwhelmingly Underwhelming<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Penguin 3.0 is the algorithm update marketers have been waiting over a year for...so where&#039;s the impact? Bruce Clay, Inc. comments on the 3.0 underwhelm.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/penguin-3-update-underwhelming\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Penguin 3.0 Update is Overwhelmingly Underwhelming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Penguin 3.0 is the algorithm update marketers have been waiting over a year for...so where&#039;s the impact? 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