Archive · Original writing. Restored from a saved copy of this website. References, services, and opinions reflect the time it was written. View the archived source.
*mind map of Penguin 2.0 announcement
After months of no updates, Matt Cutts lets the cat out of the bag on the newest webspam change… Penguin 2.0 is coming and it will have serious implications for link buying and therefore porn SEO. Since 80% of the top porn tubes spend tens of thousands buying links, expect to see big shuffles in the SERPs. Other sectors that might be affected are the ones that participate in link schemes like payday loans and other lead generating niches.
New blog post:Penguin 2.0 rolled out today goo.gl/fb/U7llH
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 23, 2013
1. Link Buying
Don’t buy half the crap that is out there. If you see a webmaster whoring their site out for paid links then the chances are its not going to help you and may even hurt you. Penguin 2.0 will be targeting porn SEO as specified by Matt Cutts in his announcement but also in other niches that are notorious for having large tangles of link schemes.
2. Advertisements
Think about page layout, Google’s advertisement guidelines, affiliate links, nofollow tags and more.
3. Link Analysis
Check your backlink profile and get to know it well. Anchor text diversity, deep linking, progressive link scheduling.
4. Content is King
This is not ever going to go away. Clean code, site architecture and crawlability are part of this. , Quality or quantity and Google uses the visitors activity as well to know the CTR, bounce, time on page, pageviews/visits etc.
5. Host Crowding
Google will start to block and limit how many results can appear not only on the first page but throughout the index and upon the send and third search. Minimize redundant content, noindex taxonomies, focus on landing pages.
6. Stay Away From Black-hat Forums
Don’t follow the heard. The chances are that if the heard are already doing it and either bragging about it or offering it on the forums then you should not follow.
7. Geo-targeting in the International Googles
Extra steps will need to be taken to assure good ranking in Google’s search engines around the world like .co.uk, .com.au, .ca etc… Cutts mentions there will be two changes but he doesn’t say what they are. My guess would be CDN feeding content from local servers and IPs and languages.
8. Leveling the Playing Field
Cutts also mentioned briefly that these new changes are geared toward helping the little guy, “small-medium businesses and just regular webmasters as well”. For the longest time only the top sites that could throw tons of money at buying links made it in the search engines but the Penguin 2.0 update will leave great opportunity in the algorithms to get ranked and still spend a fraction of what the top sites are paying!