What Does the Google Penguin Update Mean?

By Adam  |  27 Sep 2016 12:00:00

As you may have seen in one of our recent blog posts, we predicted that there was going to be an update to Google's algorithm and now it has happened. The Google Penguin update is big news for anybody who has a website which they make money from (which includes all of you) and so you need to know just what this change might mean for you and your business.

What Google's algorithm does is determine the order that websites come up for different search terms. So for example, if you were to write in "cheap bike parts" you'd get several bike websites coming up and Google uses hundreds of factors to help it determine which ones come out on top. Obviously, there are millions of websites out there on the internet and Google needs to be able to divide them as best as it can. Things like the layout of a site (and whether it is user-friendly), the quality of the content, the number of websites that link back to it, the quality of the websites that link back to it, the frequency in which the website is updated, how much the content on the site seems to be connected to the search and much more too will all determine any given website's search rank position. Essentially, this update will mean that Google gets a bit smarter and more specific in what it's doing. Nobody can know for sure how exactly they will be effected, but some website may jump right up in the rankings, while others might drop down. It will take a little while for the effects to kick in, but it is definitely best to be aware that this is happening.

Basically, Google like good and honest sites and want their search engine to be able to provide people with them - as long as you're continuing to do good work, you will most hopefully continue to rank highly. If you've done any more dubious forms of link building, however, then your chances of staying where you are are going to be lower. But if you don't even have an eCommerce website yet, then sign up to Sellr now and get started for no cost at all!