A new Penguin update from Google has been confirmed. Known as Penguin 5 to most in the search community, or Penguin 2.1 according to Google. Google’s head of search engine spam, Matt Cutts, confirmed this update via a tweet which read:
Penguin 2.1 launching today. Affects ~1% of searches to a noticeable degree. More info on Penguin: http://t.co/4YSh4sfZQj
That link provides some background info about what Penguin is, but nothing specific in regards to the new update. For most people, it will just be a recap of what they had already known about Google’s updates.
At this point there isn’t any real word on what this update is impacting. With 1% of searches being affected, however, this is quite a significant update (though certainly not the largest of its kind). In the days and weeks to come, more and more people will begin reporting what they are seeing on their sites, which may make it possible to discover the specifics of what this update was targeting.
Google has, however, become more and more tight lipped about what their updates are targeting, so it is unlikely that any official announcement will be made concerning the areas where Penguin 5 (or 2.1) are going to cause the most impact.
To give you an idea of what percentage of searches previous updates made, these bullets sum it up:
- Penguin 1 – On April 24th, 2012 the reign of the Penguin began, and impacted about 3.1% of all searches made through Google.
- Penguin 2 – On May 26th, 2012 there was a second update which was far smaller, only affecting .1% of all queries.
- Penguin 3 – October 5th, 2012 another update came out, this one only affecting .3% of searches.
- Penguin 4 – (known by Google as Penguin 2.0) came out on May 22, 2013. This was another significant update, affecting 2.3% of searches.
- Penguin 5 – (known by Google as Penguin 2.1) was confirmed on October 4th, 2013 and is affecting 1% of searches made.
If you’ve noticed any significant changes in your search traffic, comment below with what you’ve found. The Search Engine community is still attempting to discover exactly which niches will be affected the most from this new update.
