Assessing The Impact Of Google’s New Penguin
Google Penguin 2.0 – The Next Generation
Those of you who’ve been reading the HookedOnMedia blog for some time may well have noticed that the focus has been primarily directed upon Google. This should be of little surprise when you consider the impact that Google algorithm updates have had on the SEO industry. The Panda and Penguin packed such a heavy punch that some webmasters are still attempting to recover their rankings. So it’s quite understandable that news of Penguin 2.0 caused a great deal of concern.
The influential Google Engineer Matt Cutts alerted the online community to the release of this update on the 22nd of May. He attempted to put people’s minds at rest by announcing that ‘about 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice.’ He also pointed out that the new Penguin was aimed at websites containing webspam.
The analysts at SearchMetrics were quick to compile a report regarding websites that had felt the brunt of the update. The majority of sites on this list were from the porn and online gaming sectors. However, there were a couple of shock inclusions in the form of dish.com and the salvationarmy.org. It is thought that more sites could be penalised as Google rolls out updates to the next generation of Penguin over the next few months.
Bing Release Helpful Tools For Webmasters
The Bing developers have been busily integrating a new set of updates and tools for website owners over the last couple of weeks. They’ve officially released the Sitemap plugin 1.0, which allows users to create comprehensive website outlines for submission to the different search engines. This utility is compatible with the Microsoft Windows and Apache HTTP servers. The Bing faithful may also be interested in the integration of the Ads Quality Traffic Control centre. This allows for checks on the performance, pricing and placement of ads on Microsoft’s search engine.
Blekko Comes Up With A Solution To Ambiguity
It is fair to say that the search engines have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. However, Google and Bing still have a problem when it comes to search terms with multiple meanings. As an example, the individual who makes a search for ‘Apple’ may be keen to find out about the technology company or the fruit. Blekko have come up with a solution to this problem by categorising search terms under various headings. They have adopted this new search method as part of a wider redesign of their search interface.
The CEO of Blekko said, ‘We’re ready to take things to the next level by radically redefining the search results page. Now every search is going to instantly return results from the best sources on the Web and break them down into categories to provide a richer, more accurate list of real information, not just links.’
