Penguin update (2012): what it changed and what it means now

What Google changed#

Google announced the update on 24 April 2012 in a Webmaster Central post by Matt Cutts. It was “an important algorithm change targeted at webspam” that would “decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.”

The post gave two examples: a page stuffed with keywords, and a page with unusual linking patterns whose outgoing links had nothing to do with its spun text. Google did not list its signals, but said affected sites were doing much more than ethical SEO and were engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate rankings.

When it rolled out#

Google’s post said the change would launch in the next few days and go live for all languages at the same time. Search Engine Land reported it was released on Tuesday 24 April 2012. Google never stated a completion date.

Google did not name it at first; it was the “webspam algorithm update.” Two days later, Search Engine Land reported that a last check with Google got it to release its own official name, Penguin. The name is Google’s, not the industry’s.

What is known about its impact#

Google gave the figures itself. It said the change “affects about 3.1% of queries in English to a degree that a regular user might notice,” and roughly 3% of queries in languages such as German, Chinese and Arabic. Impact was higher in heavily spammed languages: 5% of Polish queries. For comparison, Google said the first Panda change affected about 12% of queries.

What site owners should do#

Penguin no longer runs as its own system. Google’s ranking systems guide lists it under retired systems, “integrated into our core ranking systems in 2016.” What it targeted is now covered by Google’s spam policies:

• Do not buy or sell links for ranking purposes, including paying with goods or services.
• Avoid excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only for cross-linking.
• Do not use automated programs or services to create links to your site.
• Write naturally. Keyword stuffing, such as repeating phrases or listing cities, is a policy violation in its own right.

How to check whether it affected you#

This is historical: Search Console keeps 16 months of data, so it cannot show April 2012. If you kept analytics from that period, compare organic Google traffic for a week before 24 April 2012 with a week after it. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists the other updates of 2012, so you can rule them out before attributing a change to this one.

Later refreshes#

Google refreshed Penguin several times before it joined core ranking. Penguin 2.0, Penguin 3.0 and Penguin 4.0 have their own pages. Search Engine Land first called the two 2012 refreshes Penguin 2 and Penguin 3; it later listed them as Penguin 1.1 and 1.2.

• Penguin 1.1 (26 May 2012): Matt Cutts called it the first Penguin data refresh, affecting “<0.1% of English searches.”
• Penguin 1.2 (5 October 2012): a data refresh that Matt Cutts said noticeably affected “0.3% of English queries.”
• Penguin 2.1 (4 October 2013): Matt Cutts said it “affects ~1% of searches to a noticeable degree.”
• Penguin 3.1 (27 November 2014): reported shifts that Google said were not a new release: “the Penguin rollout is ongoing.”
• Penguin Everflux (10 December 2014): Google said Penguin was “shifting to more continuous updates.”

Related updates#

• The page layout algorithm launched earlier in 2012, and Google’s Penguin post cited it.
• The exact match domain update was the next spam-focused change of 2012.
• Penguin 4.0 made Penguin part of the core algorithm in 2016.