Google Penguin 3.0 Update Analysis

POSITIONLY Google Penguin 3.0 Update Analysis The new Google algorithm update - analysis of the impact on SERPS and SEO landscape. S GOOGLE PENGUIN UPDATES Google Penguin algorithm updates aim to decrease search engine rankings of the websites that use forbidden link building techniques. The newest update was released on 17th of October. It's the 6th refresh of the algorithm so far. It focuses on spammy backlink profiles and based on the official source - it affects less than 1% of US search queries. PENGUIN UPDATE HISTORY 3.1% 2.3% 1.0% 1.0% 0.3% 0.1% PENGUIN 1.0 PENGUIN 1.1 PENGUIN 1.2 PENGUIN 2.0 PENGUIN 2.1 PENGUIN 3.0o Apr 24, 2012 May 26, 2012 Oct 5, 2012 May 22, 2013 Oct 4, 2013 Oct 17, 2014 IMPACT ON SERPS Percentage of monitored keywords affected by the update. UNITED STATES EN UNITED KINGDOM GERMANY 2.08% 1.98% 2.29% POLAND FRANCE SPAIN 1.66% 2.43% 4.69% NETHERLANDS RUSSIA TURKEY 1.35% 2.08% 2.43% BACKLINKS ANALYSIS The analysis of backlink profiles of the websites affected by the update. BIGGEST DECLINES 71% 77% Average Quality Other Backlinks ANCHOR BACKLINK TEXT QUALITY DISTRIBUTION 29% 23% Low Quality Branded Backlinks BIGGEST INCREASES 66% 78% Average Quality Other Backlinks ANCHOR BACKLINK TEXT QUALITY DISTRIBUTION 34% 22% Low Quality Branded Backlinks BOTTOM LINE "This refresh helps sites that have already cleaned up the webspam signals discovered in the previous Penguin iteration, and demotes sites with newly-discovered spam." Pierre Far, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google The data proves that the algorithm refresh affects mostly the websites that were hit by the previous Penguin update. The analysis revealed that the affected websites were only those which backlinks presented poor to medium level of quality. The anchor text distribution didn't have a significant influence on the ranking changes. SEO Software. Built for People. POSITIONLY positionly.com The study was conducted from 17th - 25th of October 2014. The following results are based on the analysis of 9768 websites during that period.