Google Penguin is the latest in a series of major updates launched by the Google Spam Team. The update’s main objective is to reduce spam and discount or destroy the value of unnatural links. These include links purchased and pages with poor content with the intent to do nothing except gain better SERP rankings. There are many things you can do to avoid getting affected by the updates. While I will show a bulleted list below it comes down to one action step….”Do the right thing!”.
Those that try and game Google are not thinking right. They are essentially challenging some of the smartest people in the world whose main job is to reduce the spam and fight against the very thing they are trying to prevent. In the end the short cuts or short term gains will not pan out. Google is known to change it’s algorithm almost 600 times per year and has recently been launching major updates.
Here are things NOT to do in Google even if you have seen evidence of short term gains. Many of these tactics have been addressed with vigor in the latest Penguin update:
- Don’t buy links!
- Don’t spam content like Google demonstrates here!
- Don’t write fake reviews (while this wasn’t specifically addressed in the latest update you better believe it will be)
Below are a few things you can do to help yourself become more relevant in the search engines and to avoid penalties like Penguin:
- Think about your user and intention. Are you trying to really help the reader or user? You should answer “yes!”
- Are you trying to obtain links by sharing your content via social networks and through your connections AND will those linking to you be helping their readers? Answer should be “yes!”
- Are you getting reviews from legitimate customers that have had Google accounts created more than a few days? Answer should be “yes!”
The bottom line is to ask yourself, “Am I doing the right thing here”? If you can say that you are and sleep at night then you win. Rock on.
Click here to view Google’s guidelines
