Google recently rolled out three major algorithmic updates that have left many websites reeling. The Panda update is more of a content related update, targeting sites with duplicate content and targeting spammers who scrape content.
The Penguin update algorithm appears to be targeting many different factors, including low quality links. The purpose per Google was to catch excessive spammers, but it seems some legit sites and SEOs have been caught with this latest algo change.
With the Google Penguin update, some websites have seen a big drop in traffic. If your site was considered spammy, Google may have knocked you down a few (or many) pegs on the search engine results pages.
Specific Details About a Few Sites Affected by Penguin
Some backlink analyzers were used to look at the below factors to try and figure out what may have caused the drops:
- Presence of footer links
- Links from unrelated sites
- Consecutive sponsored links, with no text descriptions in between the different links
- Site-wide links
- Too many exact match keyword links in anchor texts being the majority of the links
- Specific keywords that had dropped in rankings having over 10 percent of the links in anchor texts
No matter what happened with this SEO update it’s important for you to realize something. Google will probably never stop tweaking and adjusting their algorithms. Your job with SEO is never ever going to be done (NEVER! evil laugh…hahaha)
Continually tweaking the algorithms is Google’s concerted effort to operate with continuous improvement principles. It’s how they hope they’ll be having lion’s share of the internet search market by staying ahead of evil SEO super villains who find ways to fake their way to the top… 
What does this mean to you, the company who isn’t trying to game the system and who just wants to do the right thing so that you can attract customers to your site and provide them with an honest-to-goodness product or service? It means you’ll want to continually watch your back, for one thing!
Should you just forget SEO and leave things to chance since Google seems like it is constantly trying to stop people from succeeding at it? The answer is Clear NO.
The right strategy for SEO is very much important. The right strategy should be doing your very best to please your customers and to make quality a top priority.
• Don’t get dependent on keyword density.
• Don’t be as concerned about link juice and linking strategies.
• Do get really in tune with what your customers want.
• Do put quality at the top of the priority list and keep it there.
Sure, keywords, tags, and other SEO elements are still important. But search engines look at obvious attempts to game the system. They also look at your conversion rate to see if you’re doing a good job of servicing the traffic they send you. When the search engines measure your site, they want to know if you’re doing things in a way that is bringing you converting traffic. If they send you 10000 visitors today and 0 of them convert, search engines will re-assess whether or not you deserve that traffic.
By the same token, if you’re on the bottom of page 1 and are getting more positive results than your competitors in spots 1 and 2, search engines will take notice and you’ll inch your way up those ranks.
SEO isn’t Pointless and plays the game.
If you’ve lost rankings, you might be thinking that SEO is pointless. But it’s not. It’s important to do things so that your customers can find you. The right SEO strategies also include smart on-page optimization strategies that logically walk the visitor through the site. The best SEO results happen when you know your customers, know your industry, understand how search engines work, avoid duplicate content, avoid common SEO mistakes.
SEO isn’t the be-all and end-all. Just make sure you employ diverse online marketing strategies. Content marketing, social media, pay per click, email marketing, and other marketing methods can all help you too. Develop multiple streams of traffic and a solid customer relationship management strategy so that you don’t have to continually chase after new traffic as your only source of income. Your existing customers can keep buying and can be a great source of word-of-mouth referrals as well!
