Earlier this week I wrote a post titled “Penguin 3.0 Prepping: Get your site in order before the big refresh” which was geared towards webmasters who want to prepare for the upcoming Penguin 3.0 algorithm update.

In general, the information contained within that post is accurate and I stand by it. There is one tidbit of information that I failed to mention after reading a post on Search Engine Land about the upcoming Penguin 3.0 algorithm update. Within the post it mentions that Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst and Search Quality Engineer at Google stated:

[quote] “Gary also said that if you disavow bad links now or as of about two weeks ago, it will likely be too late for this next Penguin refresh.” [/quote]

Basically if your site has a bunch of spammy links and you are trying to disavow them now, you are most likely too late.

The good news is, it sounds like Penguin updates will start happening a bit more regularly.  Gary added:

[quote] “…the Penguin refreshes will be more frequent because of the new algorithm in place.” [/quote]

The last Penguin update (Penguin 2.1) was on October 4, 2013. Prior to that it was May 22, 2013, and before that “Penguin 3” October 5, 2012.  For a full history of Google algorithm changes, checkout Moz’s algorithm change history.

Since the upcoming Penguin is a new version i.e Penguin 3.0 and is purportedly ” large re-write” we will most likely see a big shakeup in the industry, but only time will tell.

Again, I stand by the Penguin 3.0 prep guide that I wrote last week, but it might take some time for those defensive tactics to take effect.

Over and out!