We have some interesting news in the SEO field today. According to Matt Cutts, the distinguished head of Google’s Webspam and resident SEO liaison, this weekend we are seeing the launch of Penguin 2.1. This is the latest and greatest update of the Penguin anti-webspam algorithm. What does it mean for SEO? Let’s take a quick look at what we know so far.
This is the first update to the second-generation of the Penguin algorithm. It’s designed to affect about 1% of searches to a noticeable degree.
“It’s a brand new generation of algorithms,” Cutts said in May. “The previous iteration of Penguin would essentially only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper and has a really big impact in certain small areas.”
This is the 5th update to the Penguin algorithm. So far, we aren’t sure exactly what will be affected, but you can be sure that any spammy SEO techniques will be notices. Previously, only homepages were really hit with penalties, but it sounds like the new iteration of Penguin will be doing a much deeper scan.
We’ll stay on top of any developments and let you know when we have a clearer picture of what this Penguin update will mean.