Salvation Army, CheapOair and DailyDot.com among US sites affected by Google’s Penguin 2.0 update
Analytics company Searchmetrics has revealed the top US web sites that have been affected by Google’s Penguin 2.0 update which was rolled out on 22 May in an effort to reduce webspam and promote high quality content in search results.
In a blog post, Searchmetrics noted in April 2012 that Google’s focus was primarily around webspam however the latest update is specific to the search algorithm of Google – and will affect around 2.3 per cent of English queries, while the global roll out will see the scope of Penguin vary by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.
Since the roll out of 2.0 several pages with bad links have already been cut and Searchmetrics has analysed its data for an in-depth look at the impact on the SEO visibility of US sites.
According to Searchmetrics, gaming site 2dplay.com was the most affected, seeing a -58.9 per cent different in SEO visibility. Business site lifted.com saw -57 per cent difference following the roll out, while popular blogging site DailyDot.com saw a -36 per cent difference comparing pre and post-update SEO visibility figures.
Salvationarmy.org noted a -31 per cent difference.
Commenting on the figures, Searchmetrics founder Marcus Tober said: “It’s not the update I was expecting. I thought that this Googles Penguin update would have had a bigger impact similar to Panda 1. But that didn’t happen. My first analysis shows that many thin sites, sites with thin links and especially untrusted links face the problem.
“In addition, some small business sites were hit because they haven’t taken SEO serious enough. Google itself confirmed that the impact wouldn’t be as high as many thought – maybe this is just the calm before the storm and the big update is really coming in the future. We will see.”