As you already know, Google constantly updates its algorithm in order to provide the best, most relevant search results for its users.
Even though Google has said that it would not roll anything out that would impact rankings on the SERPs (search engine results pages) during the holiday season, they confirmed with Search Engine Land that the fluctuations seen on Thanksgiving Day this year were, in fact, a result of the fact that “the Penguin rollout is ongoing”.
What Penguin 3.0 Targets
Exact match domains, affiliate sites, links within low-quality content, link profiles, inbound link overkill (including automated links and other low-quality links) and over-optimized anchor text were all hit.
Low “Link-to-Social Signal Ratios” were also hit hard. The takeaway? If you’re not using social media for audience engagement with your content, you no longer have a choice.
What This Means for Your Site
You may see major fluctuations from day to day in your position on Google until the rollout is officially complete. On Thanksgiving, the fluctuations were only positive, which indicates that there was a reversal of the rollout from October 17th. Not to worry though. We’re talking about 1% of all sites, which means that 99% of websites were not impacted at all.
Stop thinking quantity, and start thinking strength, relevancy and authenticity.
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