Google with its various algorithms have managed to change the web and how people manage websites by putting influence in how they rank. With numerous fluctuations described as 'normal turbulence', Google is rolling out a new version of its Penguin algorithm in all languages.
Previous Penguin version 3.0 may have affected a small percentages of all searches. But it still have a massive impact. For example, in the U.S and UK, it only changes about 1 percent. However, that 1 percent translates to more than 12 billion queries. than 1 percent of all searches in the U.S and UK. has finally confirmed today that its Penguin algorithm update is rolling out in all languages.
Google's Penguin algorithm is its way to catch websites that are spamming the search results. What it does specifically is to lower those than used link schemes to manipulate search rankings.
The algorithm is basically designed to hunt inorganic links, and those that are placed only for the sake of search ranking improvements. Before the first Penguin was released in 2012, the method was common for manipulating Google's search results page. And what the Penguin does, is to devalue those websites in order to recover a better search result.
Websites that are caught by the Penguin, would see that the links they've made were becoming something that are eating their rank considerably. The reason for this is because those links that are scattered on other websites, couldn't be deleted as easy as it was first created. Webmasters need to contact the owner of the websites that have their links to delete them.
So recovering from the Penguin wasn't easy, and indeed time consuming.
The 'toxic' links can be disavowed by Google. Webmasters that have audited their links and ask Google to disavow their spammy links. However, this is time consuming. Furthermore, the Penguin algorithm had to refresh before any signs of improvements could be seen.
This is where Penguin 4.0 comes. It aims to address this issue.
The Real-Time Penguin: More Granular
Websites that are affected by the Penguin was periodically refreshed, and this could take time before they can recover.
According to Google:
With Penguin 4.0, Google has made the process real-time. What this means is that any changes made will be made as soon as the affacted page has been re-crawled or re-indexed.
Here, Google is making sure that those that are penalized, can recover a lot quicker that before.
By becoming real-time also enables Google to catch websites a lot faster when it sees them doing strategies that can manipulate ranks. This will make Google closer to fulfilling its goal: catch spammy links as quickly as possible and keep low-quality websites from ranking well on its search results.
Websites that are caught by the Penguin 4.0 won't be able to use the same tactic to a significant amount of time.
Penguin also becomes more granular by having the ability to devalue spam by adjusting the ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting the whole site. This will make sure than any penalties given will be delivered to only specific pages rather than an entire domain.
Penguin works much like the Panda algorithm where it looks for portion of a website. The old Penguin 1.0 to 3.0 affected everything the domain has to give because they were designed to remove the impact of link spam on search results, but doing it in a somewhat "cruel" way. Penguin 4.0 is changing that, although it still might in a case where lots of pages in a domain are getting too many spammy links.
The Penguin 4.0 went live on September 23rd, 2016 when people were seeing changes before noticing more SERP influx days later.