At SMX Advanced last night, Google's Gary Illyes explained that Google is working on solving the hard problem of making the Penguin algorithm run in real time. Not just baked into the real time algorithm but also to refresh the data continuously and he meant that, he said.
If you do not understand the real time algorithm versus real time data refresh, see this post.
I covered this last night at Search Engine Land but in short, this is a "hard problem" for Google. It is not going to happen anytime soon, it is something that will take "months" and months Gary said. They need to rebuild a lot of the system to make it work, but that is the goal.
Google doesn't want to manual have to update Penguin, they want it to just run completely in real time.
So as soon as you get Penguin links pointing to your site, you will feel the penalty. :) But at the same time, as soon as you clean up your links, you will be released from the penalty.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
