On April 24, 2012 Google released a new update to their search ranking algorithm dubbed “Penguin.” The goal of the update, according to Google, was to combat the effect of “webspam” in its rankings. Google’s post on the release claims that the algorithmic adjustments were made to counteract keyword stuffing, link stuffing and other “techniques that don’t benefit users, where the intent is to look for shortcuts or loopholes that would rank pages higher than they deserve to be ranked.”

If your website saw a drop in position or page rank over the past few weeks, it may be because of your SEO tactics. (And if you did, you’re not alone. Read Danny Sullivan’s SearchEngineLand post on Penguin Two Weeks In.) If you didn’t see a drop, but you use the now penalized techniques, you may see one soon. Google is actively targeting link networks and blog networks, and by many accounts is now not only discounting the value of these paid links but also actually penalizing sites for having links on what it deems “webspam” sites. (Read recent posts on the topic here and here).
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