Google’s recent Penguin update has had the SEO industry in quite a tizzy. Many websites have been affected by the recent update, and you may be wondering if your website will be affected as well. The updated algorithm, while not the first in Google’s history, was created to discourage “black hat” SEO tricks by keeping spammers in check.

If your website uses any of the following then you’ve probably already been hit:

• Hidden text or hidden links
• Cloaking or sneaky redirects
• Automated queries to Google
• Load pages with irrelevant keywords
• Multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content
• Pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware
• “Doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches

How can you tell if your website was hit? Check your analytics to see if there was a major drop in visits at any point over the past 30 days. You should also check your keyword referrer report to see what, if any, keywords were affected. Once you know when Penguin hit, you can take steps to move forward by applying white hat SEO techniques and re-building your website’s ranking.

Google’s Matt Cutts said there was another update of Google Panda right before the Penguin update hit. Between the two updates, Google is really stepping up the SEO game and making Internet marketers work for the top spot.

For more about the Penguin update and white hat search engine optimization techniques contact one of our Internet marketing consultants.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.