This week Google confirmed once and for all that its Penguin 4.0 algorithm has finished rolling out, and we’ll explain what that means for your website.
Google has released new data that hundreds of thousands of domains are now utilizing AMP technology. In addition, a new patent was discovered which suggests Google has intentions to follow you around throughout all hours of the day.
Full details about each of these headlines, and more, are included in this week’s SEO and internet marketing new roundup.
Google Penguin Recoveries Done Rolling Out
At the Pubcon convention in Las Vegas this week, there was a Q&A with Google’s Gary Illyes in which he was asked the question if all penalties/demotions from previous Penguin updates had been lifted. Illyes confirmed yes, all recoveries have finished rolling out.
Penguin is a component of Google’s algorithm which demotes the search rankings of sites engaging in spammy link building practices. Being demoted by Penguin can usually be evidenced by a sudden, unusual drop in traffic over an extended period of time.
In an effort to recover from Penguin, Google’s recommendation is to build enough good, new links to make up for the bad ones. If you believe you were once demoted by Penguin and your traffic has not yet recovered, it could mean one of two things.
For starters, it could mean Penguin was never the issue in the first place. If that’s the case, there could be any number of other reasons why your site started to lose traffic without gaining it back. It’s impossible to pinpoint the reason(s) without conducting a full SEO audit.
On the other hand, perhaps Penguin was the issue, but you didn’t put in enough work to recover from it. One sure way to recover from Penguin is to build enough good links to compensate for the bad ones. If all you have been doing is removing bad links, unfortunately, that is not enough to get back into Google’s good graces.
We understand hearing this news can be frustrating if your traffic hasn’t rebounded from what you believed to be a Penguin demotion. To get to the bottom of your traffic issues, please contact us and we would be happy to assist you further.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Turns One Year Old This Week
Accelerated Mobile Pages, a technology spearheaded by Google, turned one year old this week. As a result, Google released brand new data with eye-opening statistics about how far the technology has come in just one year.
There are now 600 million AMP pages spread across 700 thousand unique domains, including WordPress, Reddit, Bing, eBay, Pinterest, and other web giants.
Pages coded with AMP technology load in seconds and are typically only served on mobile devices. They are easily identifiable in search results thanks to a little lightning bolt icon appearing next to them.
AMP in and of itself is not a ranking signal — but page load time is. With all else being equal, having your pages load in seconds could give you an edge over competitors. Another potential benefit is higher click-through rates. Even if your content doesn’t rank number one, it may get more click-throughs on mobile with searchers knowing it will load it seconds.
For more information about this technology and how to implement it, see the official AMP help page.
New AMP Testing Tool
Our previous story is the perfect segue into this one because Google just released a new version of its AMP testing tool. The company first released its AMP testing tool back in January, giving site owners the ability to locate and correct errors associated with AMP markup.
Google’s new tool is mobile-friendly (which it arguably should have been from the start), cleaner, and more user-friendly. The tool will let you know if your AMP markup is valid or invalid — if invalid, the tool will point out exactly where the errors exist what needs to be done to fix them.
In addition, Google’s new AMP testing tool utilizes Googlebot, which means it’s analyzing the live version of your site in real-time. So you can check your page, make changes if needed, then re-check it instantly. The previous tool analyzed a cached version of your website so it may not have always been crawling the most up-to-date version.
The new tool can be found here, and you can use it whether or not you’re signed in to a Google account.
Wrap Up
Deserving websites have finally received their long-awaited Penguin recoveries, the mobile web is on its web to becoming faster than ever before, and site owners have an easier way of implementing valid AMP markup code in their content.
As always, we do our best to highlight the week’s top headlines. Did we miss anything? Leave a comment below and let us know which story was most important to you this week.
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