Google Penguin Update Leaves Some Websites Out In The Cold

Google’s latest algorithm update – dubbed the Google Penguin Update – has left a lot of business owners feeling a chill about their website rankings.

The fact is, there are tons of website owners that will do just about anything to one-up the competition. They don’t care about right or wrong. They just want results. Now that Google is taking these sorts of site’s and their unethical and unnatural links head-on since the Google Penguin update is Google’s attempt to more aggressive targeting of unnatural linking, the unintended consequence seems to be the ability of certain sites to target Google’s new guidelines and actually use them to take out their competition.

How? At the moment, it seems to be as easy as offering up unnatural links that point to the competition’s website or as complex as hacking another’s site. Either way, with the Google Penguin Update, a damaged site is not only left holding the bag, they have to jump through a whole series of hoops to clean up their issues and work hand-in-hand with Google through the arduous process of reclaiming their site and rebuilding its reputation.

Sure, the whole point of releasing and refining the Google algorithm is to improve the user’s search experience and offer better, less spammy search results. It’s a commendable notion and understandably difficult to achieve considering how genius some of the black hat strategies are.

That being said, this Google update doesn’t seem to be fully baked from a marketing standpoint – especially for local small businesses, emerging businesses and startups who just can’t afford the time and expense of repairing damage from negative SEO.

So what’s the best plan to avoid being affected by the latest Google Penguin update? Like we continue to say, focus on serving your target audience best by producing high-quality, relevant content while practicing best SEO practices for your content and pray that your competition isn’t internet savvy enough to take your site down.

Good Luck.