Google’s latest ‘Penguin’ update will affect all web designers

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Google have released the latest development in their algorithm that automatically decides where a website ranks in search engine results. Called the Penguin 2.0 update, this will have a major impact on website owners, web designers and SEO (search engine optimisation) consultants.

Chief Google Engineer Matt Cutts said “It’s gonna have a pretty big impact on web spam, It’s a brand new generation of algorithms.”

Here’s a video of Matt Cutts describing the update in more detail:

Despite the changes, Google is always emphasising the importance of having a good quality website, updated frequently that is genuinely interesting to users.

“Try to make a great site that users love, that they want to tell their friends about and bookmark and come back to and visit over and over again, all the things that make a site compelling.”, Chief Google Engineer, Matt Cutts.

Google Penguin 2.0 Update is Live

The new Google update is mainly aimed at rooting out the spammers i.e. those employing dark arts (so called black hat SEO) in attempting to trick Google into ranking their website higher than it should be ranked.

Google’s main emphasis on this update is around the quality of backlinks to your website. If the sites linking back to your website are ‘unnatural’ i.e. from sites that are not frequently visited or have been setup only to boost page rank then your website could be penalised and dropped down the search engine results.

In terms of positive actions here are some suggestions:

Have great content – make your website useful, compelling, informative or all three if you can.
Use social media – build a Facebook page, Twitter feed Google + page and Linked In page and post up links back to your website. Also ensure you are always adding followers, likes etc
Have a good site structure and navigation – Site structure and navigation is a very important factor as it influences how Google views a website. An organized navigation structure also helps visitor locate what they are searching for, but also encourage the people to search other sections of the site.

Please contact Dinesh Fernando on 07941 686113 or use our contact form for more information.