Google Vows to Take Down Spammers in 2013
Google's Panda updates have become so regular that they're being integrated into the algorithm in real time, which means the shifts in that aspect of Google's ranking formula will now be unconfirmed and not big enough to notice on a large scale. Here's what Matt Cutts said at SMX West in March:
"Rather than having some huge change that happens on a given day, you’re more likely in the future to see Panda deployed gradually as we’re rebuilding the index, so you’re less likely to see these large scale sorts of changes,"
Google went on to talk about how they're getting really aggressive with their approach to spammers and that you can expect a big Penguin update before the end of the year.
As a reminder, the Penguin update is a harsher Web spam level penalty that affects sites guilty of any or all of the following: spun content", low-quality content, questionable linking practices (especially excessive anchor text rich links), cross-domain link schemes, keyword stuffing, excessive on-page optimization, or just being evil. Penguin will drop a site like a rock and similar to Panda, can be page-specific, dropping sites from 10-100+ spots for their more popular target keyword rankings.
The take away? Don't do the spammy things that Google hates, be sure your backlink profile looks natural and if you feel that your site has been penalized, then check out these resources for more input.
