When Google released the last Penguin update in 2014, it hit 12 billion search queries. People are now expecting that Penguin 3.0 will be launched this month. Penguin was first launched in April 2012 to catch sites spamming search results by using link schemes and buying links.
Prepare for Google’s upcoming Penguin Update
Google targets links from low-quality sites which are not relevant to the backlinked site. They also check overly optimized and keyword-rich anchor texts.
How can you prepare for Google’s upcoming update?
1. Check your backlink profile.
– Check the number of links and referring domains
– Check your anchor text usage and variance
– Check link quality
– Check page performance
2. Remove links manually.
– Remove backlinks from link networks
– Remove backlinks from unrelated domains
– Remove backlinks from spam sites, sites with malware warnings and sites with a large number of external links
If you ever get hit with Penguin 4.0, here’s what you need to do:
1. Do a link audit
2. Disavow toxic links
3. Get good backlinks
* Broken-Link Building – Compile a list of broken links, then take them to the webmaster and suggest other websites to replace the links (including yours).
* Infographics – These are more shareable than blogs. Create a great piece of infographic that other sites and blogs could repost.
* Roundups – This is similar to guest blogging. Search your keyword and “roundup,” and check results from the past week or month, and send a link to one of your content pieces to webmasters. Sites that run roundups are constantly looking for content, so there’s a great chance they’ll include your work.