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Penguin Recovery Posts; please just stop

By theGypsy | May 29, 2012

I have seen more than a few posts over the last fucking while with shit stating they had somehow (miraculously) recovered from the recent Google Penguin algorithm update. There are also a whack more of them talking about HOW to do so.

Either way, I call BULLSHIT.

Penguin Recovery Posts; please just stop

Why? That’s fairly simple. Allow me to make it real easy for ya, ok?

  1. It is a rolling update and we’ve just had V1.1 last Friday (May 25th). That means unless you wrote about it since then, yer full of shit.
  2. If you wrote about HOW to recover, same goddamned problem as outlined above. How in the hell would you know?

This is just like the folks that write about search patents/papers as if they were gospel instead of using not-so-impressive words like ‘may be’ ‘could be’. Any type of recovery advice should be prefaced with ‘possible’ or ‘ideas how to’ and that’s about it ya dang nerf-herders.

And I really don’t know which one’s are worse. The ignorant bird-brains that don’t even get how Penguin rolls, or the ones that are just looking to cash in and get eyeballs to their posts. Don’t believe me? (and there were high profile fuck ups too, just being nice today).

Penguin Recovery Posts; please just stop

Oh and while I am at it, can we just STFU with all the theories about Penguin/Panda? Seriously. Just before the last Panda update and the first Penguin roll out, there was an unnamed link spam type algo. It hit some folks hard too. We should be talking about ‘Google algo changes affecting SEO’ instead of trying to focus on fuzzy fucking animals. Why? Because it makes us look like a bunch of turds as we have no idea which affects can be completely attributed to which algo changes.

When talking about this with my SEO Dojo cohorts, Lee Beirne said something I thought worth adding, “I find too many SEO’s chase algo’s. Just get on with what you do and take not of changes instead of trying to be Einstien.” – WORD!!!

Laterz….

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  • Penguin Recovery Posts; please just stop

Topics: Snake Oil | 27 Comments »

Posted on 29 May 2012 by David Harry

Just a ranting and rambling search geek.... Web gypsy and renaissance man! When not losing what's left o' me mind here, I can be found blogging on the Fire Horse Trail and hanging wid me peeps at the SEO Training Dojo

has written 19 articles for SEO Bullshit

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    I cant believe you actually used nerf-herders in that post.

  • http://damncoders.com/ William Cross

    Glad someone else said it before I had a chance to rant on this topic David  :)

  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

     Jelly?

  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

    Nps Will, had to be done at some point. Ah the days when only a few updates have names (now we have monly ones with ‘code names’ no less). We just watched the dance and adapted. It was just killing me to see folks brainlessly talking about their recovery, when it was simply impossible given the second iteration hadn’t ran… grumble mumble…

  • http://twitter.com/incrediblehelp Jaan Kanellis
  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

     To be honest Jaan, that one doesn’t bother me TOO much as it’s a bit of a case study, and stated recovery was AFTER May 25th. It’s the ones prior and those taking potshots, that got irritating

  • http://twitter.com/RossHudgens Ross Hudgens

    Glad you didn’t see the post as a problem, seemed like just bad timing that it got released in conjunction with yours here.

  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

    No probs at all man, see the graphic as well as the text

     ”It is a rolling update and we’ve just had V1.1 last Friday (May 25th).
    That means unless you wrote about it since then, yer full of shit.”

    Yours was post-May 25th. It was those claiming recovery PRIOR to that which were more of the issue. As for advice, as long as it’s presented with data like yours and a caveate that we never know exactly what’s happening (can’t send folks running around like lunatics right?), then all is well in my world.

  • http://www.stepforth.com/ Ross Dunn

    I always enjoy your rants David. Thanks for bringing me a smile this fine evening :-D  Oh… and amen!

  • http://www.facebook.com/malcolm.moorhouse Malcolm Moorhouse

    Will they call the next update vulture … lol

    Seriously, one of my sites which is over six years ( http://www.psychics4you.co.uk ) has been clobbered. Funny thing is my site uniques went up by between 30/35% after penguin was implemented. Then the dreaded update/f/up and my site died.

    Its been in the top 10 for about 3 years on competitive KW’s like psychic readings (averaging out at about position 6 now 36 for this term)

    What I have noticed if you do a uk search for psychic readings 70% of the sites are adword clients NOW … mmm .. makes you think.. and your gonna love this the site at position 9 is a one pager with premium phone No plastered all over it .. wtf

  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

    That’s how I roll bruddah! It’s cathartic. 

  • http://www.mikewilton.com/ Mike Wilton

    Err…So I guess my SNC post chapped your hide huh Dave?  Curious to know your thoughts then in regards to changes we saw.  Not calling you out here, I would honestly appreciate your feedback as someone I respect.

    We literally had 3 sites get bitch slapped by Google on the date of Penguin.  They have in no way fully recovered by any means, but we began seeing slight recovery within a couple weeks of the update as we began making changes.

  • http://www.seopros.org Terry Van Horne

    Mike… I’m sure Dave wasn’t referring to you. More a lot of the posts are just very inaccurate. BTW Penguin and Panda are like the Google Dance if you saw recovery…. well it wasn’t Penguin cuz the 1.1 update did not run until last Friday. If you came in on Monday and saw improvement then you are making Penguin progress. 

  • http://www.huomah.com theGypsy

     Mike, when it comes to Panda/Penguin we know it’s a rolling update. There are no recoveries (or further losses) between dates. If something happens it would be related to other algo changes (600/yr right?) or even movement by competitors (up or down). Don’t shoot the messenger bruddah, she is what she is. This is kinda why I talked about getting past the names. It seems SEOs all  think that any changes (positive or negative) are either Panda or Penguin. Care to see the search quality changes blog posts each month? Was like 53 in the one from April. How is it that some of THOSE might not have played into things? Peeps are getting way too myopic with names IMO. Including me. I’ve written about Penguin, been on a Webinar, interviewed. I am no angel here. Just starting to re-think my position.

    Also, consider what happens is some losses aren’t you. Meaning that those linking to you got hit. What links did U build during that time? Did those linking to you do something to improve their own positions… on and on… ya see where I am headed here?

    I don’t know everything, but I do believe that with these rolling updates (Panda/Penguin) there simply is no movement one way or another unless it’s on a roll-out date.

  • http://www.mikewilton.com/ Mike Wilton

    I know Dave wasn’t blasting me Terry.  Just figured I’d be lumped into the bunch. ha  I guess in my defense I was writing more about the other facets of Penguin that many folks have ignored that my team and I focused on since we knew that in these particular cases it wasn’t a backlinks problem on our part, but either an “over-optimization” probably or perhaps a blow caused by people linking to the site getting hit.

  • http://www.mikewilton.com/ Mike Wilton

    Thanks Dave.  Again, I was in NO WAY blasting you. I truly just wanted your insight.  In these particular cases we saw core keywords rebound after the changes were made that seemed to point to major “over-optimization” by the client.  But as you pointed out, its very possible that this was another algo adjustment that gave us a bump.

    I appreciate the feedback man.  Keep fighting the good fight.

  • http://twitter.com/Redfly Redfly

    THANK YOU Dave. The WPMU post over on SEOmoz annoyed me most. ALL our Penguin hit sites recovered by the same % as theirs did and we did NOTHING. 

    I guess they got the high quality links they were after in the end though. 

  • http://ipad2covers.org/ http://ipad2covers.org

    There is no permanent recovery from Google attacks. Every new update is another risk now.

  • Iskandry

    As a psychic, u must have been able to see in advanced that an algo changes is coming. I find it sad that a psychic could read the lives of others but could not see that his site will drop in rank pretty soon.

  • http://www.usachatrooms.org/ chatterb0t

    hey malcom just google “psychic” and look at PG 1. thats your future buddy, google products has hijacked the entire top half of results. not much different for other keyword phrases either.

    looks like it’s adwords and google pages for you. but dont worry i semi-feel your pain. i did SEO for a pretty famous psychic, just a few months ago i told her i cant help her anymore as she did not want to risk $33 a click for adwords, and i refuse to get involved in adwords or google pages/products at all.

  • http://www.seoweave.com/ Greg Fowler

    There has been only one case I have heard of anyone recovering ONLY partially from Penguin.  So in essence you are right, most of it is a bunch of BS.

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  • http://twitter.com/BlackdeathKK Sinbad Konick

    yeah that’s too good..you written it as detailed as possible about penguin recovery nowadays it’s tough to find articles like those..thanks for the nice share..

  • susanna

    FABulous post!!!
     

  • susanna

    Isn’t the one where they actually talked to someone at Google???

  • http://www.miragelimo.com/ Joe

    Are you saying I should ask for a refund?

  • http://explainafide.com.au Robin Jennings

    I went to the zoo last week with my son and saw a Penguin and the hairs on the back of my neck went skywards. An hour later I saw a F&*&*ing Panda and I almost convulsed all over his god-damn bamboo.

    Damn you bloggers for spoiling my trip to the zoo!