{"id":3426,"date":"2019-04-24T15:28:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T14:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.usdigital.co.uk\/?p=3426"},"modified":"2019-11-21T12:35:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T12:35:58","slug":"google-penguin-turns-7-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.usdigital.co.uk\/blog\/google-penguin-turns-7-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Penguin Turns 7 Years Old Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
7 years ago today Google announced the Penguin algorithm update<\/a>, which came just over a year after Google Panda<\/strong> and a few months after the Top Heavy Update<\/strong> (an update that penalised sites with too many ads or too little content above the fold).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Google Penguin certainly got the SEO forums fired up and over the weeks and months after Penguin touched down; we saw the full extent of the update.\u00a0 When Penguin first launched in April 2012, it affected more than 3 percent of search results.<\/p>\n The algorithm update was rolled out to improve the quality of search for the user, targeting spammy websites that had poor link profiles or had engaged in manipulative link building practices<\/a>. In the years before this update SEO\u2019s counted largely on keyword-text based links and the sheer volume of links to help them climb the rankings to gain higher positions.<\/p>\n The SERPS were miss-match of poor landing pages (doorway pages) and spam sites ranking in prominent positions because there was nothing in place to measure quality \u2013 nothing significant anyway.<\/p>\n