As some that have Business Web sites have discovered, not all penguins are cute and cuddly. The recent Google Penguin updates have led to more than a handful of problems for some Business Web sites, many of which have been left scrambling trying to bring their site’s rankings back up to par to where they were even a few months ago.
For those still trying to better verse themselves with the Google Penguin penalty, quite simply it means the best-known search engine is attempting to promote top-notch Web sites and penalize those that have more spam-oriented or duplicate content on them.
According to comments from Google, the idea behind a number of its ranking changes is to assist searchers in locating sites that offer a great user experience while also meeting their information needs.
Google reported that while approximately 12 percent of queries suffered significantly from the Panda update, only about 3 percent of queries in English are impacted via the Penguin algorithm.
Many site owners are probably wondering if and how Penguin may have impacted their traffic following the Panda algorithm, so the first step is to review your traffic.
In the event traffic looks to be severely decreased following April 24 of this year, then your site was likely penalized with a Google Penguin. Traffic that witnessed a major reduction prior to that date is likely due to the Google Panda update.
If you find yourself to be one of the sites that have been hit, there are some things you can do to reverse the negative impact.
Even if your company’s site has not suffered at the hands of both Panda and Penguin, now is as good a time as any to review what practices you have been employing on your site in order to lessen the chances of being impacted down the road.
[box type=”bio”]Dave Thomas, who discusses subjects such as SEO marketing companies and online marketing solutions, writes extensively for San Diego-based Business.com.[/box]