In the past, sites have been able to achieve high rankings on search engines such as Google through negative ranking techniques; some of which have resulted in warnings and sanctions. Now, however, Google are announcing the introduction of Penguin 2.0, an algorithm update which targets websites with inbound links from questionable, low-quality, and irrelevant sites.
The meaning of this is that all the questionable techniques that have been permitted in the past will no longer be tolerated. These false means that benefit your SEO ranking are now ignored, to make sure that spam is no longer seen in your search results.
Another thing that will disappear with the introduction of Penguin 2.0 is the concept of buying links. Those sources that include the use of directories, forum posts, blog comments and other methods that people use to buy links illegitimately will be removed. This has already started yielding results, as it is still possible for you to search and see many of these links and results in Google, but when you click the illegitimate ones, they will simply not lead anywhere.
The concept of hacking other people’s sites, so as to add links without their knowledge will no longer be of benefit with Penguin 2.0. Here, Google will simply inform webmasters that their site has been hacked, and that they should take the necessary and required action against this happening again.
Now, SEO will be more rigidly based on authority in your field. Those brands that have been able to build and establish themselves as authorities will benefit the most from this update. So, if you want to rank on a particular topic, you have to make use of all acceptable tools to become an authority there, so that Google will rank you appropriately. You can only do this with quality content that will generate natural and social signals, natural links, mentions and links from other influencers and by building up cordial business relations within your circle. All of this means that you have to build your site around the principles of usability and performance.
You also need to make your website more social – these changes are encouraging SEO to go more social, because apart from the links, social media is the avenue that best (re-)introduces you to both old and new customers. By employing the most effective public relation strategies, you can now ensure that you are mentioned on other sites in a natural manner, instead of a fraudulent and manipulative one, and reap the benefits that Penguin 2.0 has to offer.
