Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Jim Munro on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/24/2016).

Google: Penguin is now part of our core algorithm

This is not a Penguin Update. This is a fresh approach to an age-old problem.

Penguin was fundamentally flawed in that it allowed actions of a competitor to take down an entire site. Google has known for many years that innocent websites were being wrongly penalised.

If I am comprehending what they are saying correctly, now it will be almost impossible for the actions of a competitor to ruin someone else`s site. This is a complete about-face by Google and good on them for finally trying to do the right thing.? Federico Sasso   My understanding is negative SEO is still possible.
Good news is demoted sites will not need to wait ages to be re-evaluated after cleaning the mess (or disavowing it). It also means "churn and burn" spammers will have harder times getting results. Penguin is now part of our core algorithm  
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Jim Munro: This is not a Penguin Update. This is a fresh approach to an age-old problem.

    Penguin was fundamentally flawed in that it allowed actions of a competitor to take down an entire site. Google has known for many years that innocent websites were being wrongly penalised.

    If I am comprehending what they are saying correctly, now it will be almost impossible for the actions of a competitor to ruin someone else's site. This is a complete about-face by Google and good on them for finally trying to do the right thing.
  • Federico Sasso: My understanding is negative SEO is still possible.
    Good news is demoted sites will not need to wait ages to be re-evaluated after cleaning the mess (or disavowing it). It also means "churn and burn" spammers will have harder times getting results.
  • Jim Munro: Fair enough, +Federico Sasso, you would know better than I do but would you mind sharing some attack 'vector' examples still possible for discussion on Thursday? Am I right in assuming that they are now evaluating on a page by page basis and not accumulating counters? Do you think their new method is to discount or not count extreme values as Bing has always done?
  • Federico Sasso: +Jim Munro ;The "more granular" statement is a little ambiguous in my opinion; if not on a page basis, could be for site sections.
    I have no insights, of course, on how they evaluate outlier values. Looks to me they didn't simply mention anything about that in the linked post. I think we should assume nothing changed on that (unless I missed something).
  • Jim Munro: ...and I thought I was a hard and cynical man, +Federico Sasso. :)

    ...but would they have expended all those resources to change their method for no benefit? I am stupid enough to imagine that they have learned from the way Bing approaches this issue or at least that is what I have given them credit for.

    Time will tell, I guess.

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/24/2016).