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Caution! Google’s Penguin is Watching Your Online Business

June 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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James Martell

James Martell

You’ll receive money making advice and actionable tips and strategies directly from James Martell when you subscribe to his weekly podcast by email, RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow James on Twitter. Recognized as a leading expert in affiliate marketing training, James is the host of the "Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp", and host of the "Affiliate Buzz", the first ever and longest running podcast for affiliate marketers in the industry. A sought-after speaker, James has presented at Commission Junction University, Affiliate Summit, The System Seminar, Digital River Lab, Pubcon, Affcon, and more. Google+ James Martell
James Martell

@JamesMartell

James Martell
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Caution! Google's Penguin is Watching Your Online Business

Google Penguin

I have been enjoying a home-based online business since 1999, as an affiliate marketer, speaker, author, and podcaster. Working side by side with my wife Arlene, we thoroughly enjoy the freedom and flexibility that comes from working from home.

Many people have decided to leave the stuffiness of the corporate world, to dive into a whole new world of an online business. They left behind structured hours, mandatory meetings, and stressful commutes.

It was a great feeling the first time my wife and I could finally say “˜yes’ to helping out our children, or attended an event that the traditional brick and mortar job would have prevented us from attending, due to lack of time and funds. No longer getting stuck in traffic, having time to make a good meal before running out for the kids baseball game, and having clean laundry before we ever have to worry about it are just a few of the perks to working from home.

However, our livelihood is tied to the Internet. So, when someone as powerful as Google makes a change that can affect our business, I take note.

The Penguin Waddled In

Well, maybe not waddled, but Penguin entered not just my world on April 24, 2012, but the world of everyone who has an online business. Penguin is Google’s newest algorithm that can make a significant impact on any online business, especially if you are not watching the quality of your content your backlinks are embedded within.

As I mentioned earlier, I started my online business back in 1999. At that point, I had never heard of Google. The top search engines being used at that time was WebCrawler, Excite, and AltaVista. However, as with anything”¦especially technology, nothing remains the same.

The good news is that the changes are typically to help legitimate businesses become more successful. Penguin is no different, even though it might seem like a roadblock for some at first.

What Penguin is NOT

Before I go further into what Penguin can do to help us, and what online business owners need to do, I’m going to dispel some rumors that Penguin is replacing Panda. They are two different algorithms by Google, with varying goals.

Panda targets pages that are low quality, but not necessarily spam. They zero in on content that is thinly veiled as worthy for readers, but offers very little substance. Now, this isn’t necessarily spam, just poorly written material.

My wife Arlene and I have taken great steps in insuring that we work with content that is of high quality and won’t be targeted by programs such as Panda. However, quality is subjective, depending on who, or what, is reading the material. I will discuss this further a little later in the article.

If you are producing top-notch content, then you probably don’t have to worry about Panda’s long-reaching hand.

On the other hand, Penguin might be a different story.

What Penguin IS

Rather than going after low quality material, Penguin is targeting pages that are spamming Google. So, while Panda is not focused on spam, Penguin is. This has had a significant impact on blogging networks, and article directory sites”¦and anyone who is receiving links from them.

Penguins Crossing

/>It may be a surprise for you to learn, or not, that blogging networks consisting of hundreds, possibly thousands of sites have sprung to sell links, which has been strongly discouraged by Google, to increase PageRank. Network managers have been known to set the multitude of sites up with various names, IP addresses, and server locations, in an effort to cloak their existence from the BIG Google.

The next step is to sell subscriptions for loading an abundance of articles into their network of sites, most with little regard to quality, and each containing backlinks to the subscriber’s site.

These backlinks contained within these articles, albeit low in quality, did offer some backlinking power”¦that is, until Penguin arrived on the scene. The bad news is these paid links, for the most part, have been neutralized and now offer little to no backlinking power.

It’s a backlinking scheme, and Penguin is cleaning shop. They are going after these networking sites, and spam backlinking along with it, whether it’s intentional, or not.

How to Protect Your Content from the Sweep

For links that have been removed, I don’t believe you have anything to worry about. However, if you have any multitudes of links pointing to your site, you have a bit of work ahead of you if you want to regain your ground. And, who doesn’t?

It’s best to get rid of anything linking to your content that you have received from the blogging networks and article directories, as it has a big target on its back. Fortunately, Google has already delisted a large number of these sites, which may have eliminated some of the problem for you.

If you have pages on your site that are inundated with spamming links, you may want to consider taking the pages down.

Along with the links, make sure you are working with quality content, as well as careful about the sites that you link it to, as well as receive links from. To give you an idea, here are some spamming links or categories to avoid:

  • Low quality article directories
  • Sites that are “˜too’ easy to submit to
  • Platforms or sites that utilize excessive exchanging of links
  • Keyword or keyword phrase stuffing
  • Backlinks to web spammers or low quality sites, and article directories
  • Blogging networks

A good test to see if you are affected is to check your activity. If your traffic suddenly dropped after April 24, then you probably got hit “¦so you have some work to do. If there was no change, or even an increase, then you maybe benefited from Penguin.

In Summary

Google takes these steps, such as Penguin and Panda, in an attempt to make it a good experience for both the business owner, as well as the consumer. If you feel a few bumps along the path of change, it should smooth out as long as you concentrate on producing quality material for consumers.

With Panda focusing on quality and Penguin targeting spam, the majority of the market will once again be legitimate businesses. Fingers crossed.

About the Author

James Martell has been enjoying a successful online career since 1999, through his affiliate marketing business, podcasts, speaking engagements, and his popular “Affiliate Marketers BootCamp”. He and his wife Arlene enjoy sharing their tips on how to make money with affiliate marketing, so others may experience the same success. Living in a seaside suburb of Vancouver, their dream of creating a business empire has allowed for flexibility and enjoying time with their family. 

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