Google Attacks SEO Abuses With Penguin 2.0 Release

Today Google began rolling out its latest assault on web spammers and rogue Search Engine Optimization (SEO) abuses. The algorithm update which is being referred to as Penguin 2.0 is expected to have a visible affect on approximately 2.3% of English queries in the U.S. The announcement came from Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. Just about a week earlier, Cutts released a blog post addressing what to expect in SEO in the coming months in which he mentioned the new algorithm update.

Its doubtful that this algorithm update will affect the typical business owner who just maintains their website on their own. The folks that have to worry are the ones who have:

1. Paid for links or been involved in link exchanges
2. Have a website in a heavily spammed niche (ie. Payday Loans)
3. Hired an inexpensive SEO company that guaranteed your company would be #1 in the search results

Cutts reiterates the importance of having high quality content as the guideline for improving your sites position in the search results. If you have poor quality content but your site is ranking highly due to any of the aforementioned items, watch out. Google is on a mission to clean up search results and improve the overall experience for its search audience. If you focus on providing quality content, your efforts will be in alignment with theirs and you will have long term success.