Google launched the penguin update in April 2012 which relies on more than 200 unique signals that make it possible to surface what you might be looking for. These signals include things like page rank, specific words that appear on the website, your region, and freshness of the content.
So after two years, Google’s penguin algorithm update recently announced. After 2012, it’s the fourth major release and it becomes penguin 4.0. After a period of testing and development, Google finally rolled out an update to the penguin algorithm in all languages. Following are the changes you will see in the new update:
According to Google, with this new 4.0 update, Penguin goes real time. Now penguin’s data will refresh in real time, As Google reindex and recrawl pages, so changes will be visible much faster.
Penguin is basically a filter that runs and catches the spam sites. Those sites which Google regular spamming system might not detect, now Penguin 4.0 capture those sites and penalized them. Those long delays are now a history, because according to Google with the latest update, Penguin becomes real time and the pages will be constantly assessed by the Penguin filter.Now all the spam pages will be freed or caught by Penguin as a part of the regular process.
Earlier, Penguin was a site wide penalty, but now being granular it means it’s become more page specific. Instead of affecting ranking on the whole site, now this Penguin 4.0 devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals. One of the interpretation we can conclude from this update is that penguin might impact specific pages on a site.
Google also said with the update that we will no longer confirm penguin updates. It actually makes a sense. Since it’s a constant process, there is nothing to confirm.
It’s not fully live yet. Google said, “ it is now rolling out”. Google did not reveal when it will roll out actually, but I think it won’t take much time, maybe a couple of weeks. You will see the changes soon if Google revisits your pages. Contrary to it if Google comes to your site more infrequently, it may take longer.
