Matt Cutts, Head of Webspam at Google officially announced on his site that the latest version of Penguin 2.0 is out. Supposedly about 2.3% of English-US queries are affected, which is relatively huge. What’s interesting to note is that several of us in the forum noticed some movement at the end of April even before Matt highlighted a Penguin update was imminent. It certainly looks like Google rolls out their algorithms before making an official announcement. Did you notice any changes in your search traffic at the end of April?
Perhaps it’s too soon to tell, but I’ve heard relatively minimal complaints about the latest Penguin roll-out. Since the Exact Domain update in Fall 2012, I’ve observed a huge improvement in new content across the web. Freelance SEO writers have upped their game to write longer content that better matches a site’s style. Bloggers have also increased the length of their average content with more in-depth material as initiatives such as the Yakezie 5,000+ Words A Week Challenge materialized in November 2012.
BULLISH ON BLOGGING
As we head into the long, glorious days of summer, I encourage everyone to up their game while others fulfill the temptation to play. Nobody says you can’t work while relaxing over some sangria on the beach in Mallorca! This is the internet after all. Perhaps experiment with different media or a new writing style. Maybe increase the frequency of your posting schedule. Leverage your brand. Whatever the case, we’ve all got our blogging optimum to achieve.
I’m more bullish on blogging than I’ve ever been before. With the stock markets going ballistic, we should expect lots of mergers and acquisitions over the next year. Yahoo! buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion on 80X trailing revenue is a prime example of hallelujah money in the online publishing space!
Consider delaying the sale of your web property for as long as possible. Think about how much wealth our grandparents made buying property and holding on for decades. Think about stock titans like Buffett who do the same thing. Significant wealth is created through long durations of holding and not by punting stock like a madman this month. You’ve got to be in it to win it. Burnout be damned!
Overall, I think the latest Google algorithm updates are a win for everybody, including Google, whose stock recently breached an all-time high of $900+. The bottom line is that better content is being produced on the web. What are your thoughts on the latest Penguin update and the state of the blogosphere?
Photo: A sea of change is upon us. There’s actually a whale tail in the picture, but it’s too small to tell. North Shore, Oahu, 2013.
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Regards,
Sam
I haven’t noticed any direct effects from the Penguin update, but then again, I only look at my traffic once a month (used to be much more). I have, however, noticed an improvement in the blogosphere regarding 1. more advertising deals and 2. “more readable” content. I’m definitely bullish with you.
I have got a huge traffic bump at the end of April, and at first thought it was because G reader was dying so I had more visits from regular people, but it was a better search engine traffic. Like you I think quality websites will benefit from the update and link farms will slowly go down in the rankings.
I’m glad to here that some of the content that was marginalized in the last penguin update is going to be re-looked at by the new algorithm. I think several of my internal pages were hit that shouldn’t have been, so it will be interesting to see if they start to rank again in search.
I haven’t really seen any ups or downs, but it is too early to tell. I hope that people with good content are rewarded and not accidentally knocked down.
Like Pauline, I had a nice bump in search traffic since the end of April and have changed my style a bit to write longer and hopefully higher quality posts. I think it’s still too early to tell, but here’s to hoping for continued good times.
While my search traffic is very, very small, I did notice a jump towards the end of April. I am now generating more search traffic than ever. I’m not sure if this has to do with my blog just getting older or with this update, but I’ll take it!
Impeccable timing, Sam. I just lamented about my obsession with traffic stats. My traffic trended down for a bit, then back to normal-ish. Mostly, I’m focusing on writing longer/better/more useful content, and hope the big G looks down favorably upon my web dwelling!
Although I did see a bump up at the end of April, I have also noticed a dip in May. Has summer started?
Hmm…this is the first I’ve heard about Penguin. I picked up on Panda awhile ago but my sites to you new to have noticed the up and down trends of a lot of these updates. However, I’ve been fooling around with web directories for SEO purposes so I’m not sure if this is going to kick me in the butt in the long run. We’ll have to see, I guess.
Sam, Thanks for sharing the video. Still seems like sponsored posts are frowned upon and that one should definitely indicate sponsorship on the post.As I build out my site a bit more and offer more free products (and later paid) I expect to familiarize myself with the Google Webmaster Academy.
My site’s too new to credit or blame Penguin 2.0 for anything.
Sam… This is one of my favorite posts you have written. Why? You mentioned what our grandparents did. Selling our site today might make us a few pennies. Or a few million pennies but it might not compare to the rewards for putting out great content. I held on tight in 2008. Didn’t sell a stock, bond or mutual fund. Cried for a year straight. Today I am smiling ear to ear.
A large portion of my traffic comes from searches and I’ve noticed my traffic has been erratic lately. Could be that summer is approaching and that’s the cause, or maybe it’s the update. Too soon to tell.
The Memorial Day Weekend definitely is a slowdown in traffic. However, things should pick up again later this week. Most of us should have seen some changes earlier in May before the official announcement.
I am seeing a drop. Not quiet sure if it’s due to Penguin or due to server issues at HostGator. Will come to know soon.
Good to know about Penguin 2.0 and that they are working to make things harder for spammers. Fortunately I don’t have too much spam hitting my site, but it does come in waves sometimes.
PS- Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that Matt is wearing a Firefox shirt instead of something for Chrome or am I missing something?
Good pick up! And a little conflicting yeah? Firefox is open source and non profit I believe, so he is supporting a cause.
When I rebranded my site last summer, I had a huge drop in search traffic due to the loss of my old domain’s age. It finally came back with a vengeance around March and my traffic/AdSense earnings have skyrocketed. So far I have only benefited from Penguin and Panda and I hope that continues to be the case.
Good to hear and congrats!
No changes for me. I am averaging just over 150 views per day and it has not changed in the last few months. I am on some sort of readership plateau and I haven’t figured out how to make the next leap. No penguins are pulling me down though.
It’s a phenomena that tests a blogger’s patience. When will the hockey stick come, if ever? And will the good times continue after a ramp one year.
This is my first comment am making since the update was rolled out. I cant say I have seen any negative change (hope this is not too early to detect the changes) but I can say that Google has increased its crawl rates on my website. Like literally, the whole website at once. I dont know what this means anyway.
Definitely good to get the word out and every blogger should be aware of this. I’ve noticed that only a handful of posts had some reduction of traffic. But overall no real change here. Google is always telling us what they want and don’t want us to do. I have found that if you just stick to the basics and don’t try to pull anything funny in terms of SEO and backlinking, usually you have nothing to fear in the wake of these updates.
Yeah, new generation of penguin will lead me to write quality content. It will force me to build balanced backlinks. :-)