Honestly, I am shocked that we are seeing so many fluctuations, reversals and changes to Penguin hit sites. Today, there are more changes with sites impacted by the Google Penguin algorithm. Google has NOT confirmed any of this, I didn't reach out to them to confirm. I will but I doubt I will hear back.
Let me catch you up on what is going on...
On Thanksgiving day, Google started to reverse Penguin penalties (I know Google doesn't call them penalties). This was a good thing and Google actually confirmed this was part of the Penguin 3.0 rollout. Then on Thursday, those gains were rolled back for many. When John Mueller of Google was asked about it, he didn't seem to know what was going on.
Now this morning, the reversals seem to have been reversed and now sites hit are Penguin free, or at least some.
The SEO community is buzzing about it on two WebmasterWorld threads, several BlackHat Forums threads and Twitter.
Here are some quotes from those discussions:
Since yesterday I notice sites (more than a few) that were slapped between 10 and 20 October (rankings fall 200+) are now completely regaining their rankings...So, did Penguin devalued certain links (and thus slapped all these sites) and now it’s backtracking (or whatever it’s called) and as such releasing all these sites?
They rolled it back....and all sites went back yesterday/the day before....now about an hour ago I have seen all hell break out and @#$ is falling out of the top 300 fast as @#$. I am talking high quality @#$ dropping.
I've got a feeling that this change signals the end of the Penguin roll out.
I think it is as I see Penguin affected sites on the move. I doubt that any of the sites I see were affected by Panda. Could be something new though.
@Marie_Haynes FYI... seeing some major recoveries tonight.
— Stuart McHenry (@smindsrt) December 5, 2014@joemoneycouk @Marie_Haynes @rustybrick @smindsrt OK, no movement across Panda data, but seeing Penguin fluctuations. Just saw a reversal.
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 5, 2014@smindsrt @Marie_Haynes penguin fully reversed in my niche
— Dale Rodgers (@DaleRodge) December 5, 2014What makes me really sad is that we have not seen so much fluctuation in the Google algorithm during the holiday shopping season since 2004, the Florida update. Since then, Matt Cutts has told us time and time again, they would minimize any algo updates during the holiday season. With him gone, is that also gone with it?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, BlackHat Forums and Twitter.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for Penguins in a row
