Survive and Thrive in The Penguin Update

A lot is being discussed about the Google Penguin Update and the effect it is having on online marketing and businesses. The update has been painted with a broad brush as an anti over-optimization update designed to target keyword stuffing on-page and poor link profiles off-page. We received an email from a client regarding the Penguin Update and what we make of it. We hope this post helps our clients sleep well at night knowing they have hired an exceptional SEO team.

A poor link profile can be one issue Penguin has with your website and can mean a lot of different things:
• Uneven or suspect time frames on link growth
• Unnatural link source distribution, such as too many links from social, too many links from article sites, too many low quality or out of context links, such as footer links, and blogroll links or unbalanced follow vs. no follow links
• Strange IP groupings or too few IP blocks, which might suggest link farms
• Too many site wide links or site wide links on template pages that may have been targeted in the Panda updates

Now this is nothing new, and much has been made out of nothing to a certain degree. Google has been trying to squash the monster it created for a decade. Google’s model was based on linking and passing of authority through interlinking sites from the very start. Google invented this model to a degree, and Google has ever since been playing whack-a-mole on those using this model in an unnatural way.

When you finish reading here about our successes in traversing through the Penguin Update, read the best Penguin Post yet here, and coincidentally, the writer came to the same conclusions we did. The short version of his data analysis was that unnatural linking patterns, like overusing a single keyword or having 90+% of your links from non relevant websites, lead to problems with the Penguin Update.

Links passing juice and link farming were both born of the same Google model.

Google has always had to be cautious and avoid creating a situation where black hat SEO can target a competitor’s site. There was always fear that an automated link judging system could be tricked to send poor links towards your competition. Google has always stood by the fact that this would and could not happen. This new update seems to be coming down harder on even less poor link profiles. Google has always tried to look at bad link profiles and worthless links as just that–worthless. The Penguin update seems to indicate that bad links will not only be ignored but punished. This new Google update has again opened the discussion of Google pushing your competition off the map.

Again, we haven’t seen evidence of this “Google Bombing” yet, but the importance of rotating your keywords and anchor text has been much more significant this past year.

I have seen many experiments with my own test sites that appeared to be like a Chinese finger puzzle. Once I’d send enough quality anchor links for a certain keyword, anything more in a short unnatural timeframe seemed counterproductive. The harder you push a certain keyword, the tighter the SERPS seems to get around that particular term.

While we cannot disclose details of our client base at CGR, we can show a little of what has been going on with our own Charlotte web design company’s website.

The report since the latest Panda update seems to target automated content and template websites, and it’s also the most recent report on our website since the “dreaded” Penguin update. So, with the proof always seeming to be in the pudding, this is a quick overview of what our own website and search terms have done since these major updates. By staying on top of Google’s updates, we have our clients coming out as winners in this one. By knowing what the best practices are to remedy targeted SEO elements, we can put forth a better on-page product for Google’s evaluation engine.

The short version is this: We know what they are going after, and we adjust to avoid problems. SEO Companies that do not prepare for this fall back in the rankings, fall back in new client leads, and make room for us to advance.

Keep in mind these terms all advanced from page 3 to page 2 and finally to page 1 before the second Panda Update and even before the Penguin update. Some of our key perspective keyword terms, like Charlotte SEO, Charlotte Web Design and Charlotte Website Design, have all moved 1 to 5 spots upwards since Penguin.

Some other notables checked in this report were: Charlotte affiliate marketing, Charlotte affiliate marketing expert, Charlotte attorney website, Charlotte automotive website design, Charlotte creative website design, Charlotte custom website design, Charlotte financial website design, Charlotte graphic design, Charlotte internet marketing, Charlotte marketing, Charlotte marketing agency, Charlotte marketing company, Charlotte marketing firm, Charlotte nc web design, Charlotte nc website,, Charlotte nc website design Charlotte new, Charlotte PPC expert, Charlotte reputation defense, Charlotte search engine marketing, Charlotte search marketing, Charlotte SEM, Charlotte SEO, Charlotte seo advice, Charlotte seo agency, Charlotte SEO company, Charlotte seo expert, Charlotte seo experts, Charlotte seo firm, Charlotte seo service, Charlotte seo tips, Charlotte top website designs, Charlotte web design, Charlotte web design companies, Charlotte web design company, Charlotte web design firm, Charlotte web development, Charlotte website, Charlotte website design, Charlotte website design awards, Charlotte website designer, Charlotte websites, and creative website design.

The report is longer than what is shown, but since the Penguin Update, CGR Creative has only recieved a single negative search position shown here, and it was only down a single spot. The single spot we fell was due to other web pages that reference us as well.

Our mission is to understand your marketing needs and partner with you to develop measurable creative solutions to gain visibility and market share.