On the 4th October Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team, confirmed that Google rolls out Penguin 2.1, (a.k.a. Penguin 5).
Although Google are giving nothing away, by calling it Penguin 2.1 they have sent out the message that there are no major changes to Penguin 2.0, just an update of current algorithm. Unlike when the last update when Google specifically named the update 2.0 to show a departure from the original Penguin.
However although the change may not be earth shattering it is having a “noticeable” effect on 1% of search results. This may not sound like a lot but it is in the SEO world and as Troy Reddington pointed out, we in the SEO industry are pretty observant!
At the moment there is scant information on what this latest update has done so it’s very much the case of “watch this space”. We don’t know much, nothing other than the launch date and name of the update have been confirmed and there has not been enough time for people to test their theories. However what it does show is that Google haven’t finished with Panda yet and if you haven’t already done so you need to clean up for backlink profile in order to withstand further Penguin attacks in the future.
When the next update is coming out is any ones guess but the pattern that I starting to emerge is interesting. Google seem to like pushing out updates in May and October.
Previous Updates:
Penguin 1 – 24 April 2012
Penguin 2 – 26 May 2012
Penguin 3 – 5 October 2012
Penguin 2.0 (aka Penguin 4) – 22 May 2013
Penguin 2.1 (aka Penguin 5) – 4 October 2013
