Answer - when the Penguin in question is the algorithm introduced in April 2012 and used by Google to assess a website’s page ranking measured against standards of website user experience and content.

The Penguin update was introduced to penalise websites that used manipulative techniques to improve their rankings.
 
These techniques include dubious link building – these are links from websites to your website that have no relevance to your site whatsoever.  Only links from sites that are well ranked themselves and have relevance to your products or services are going to be acceptable.

Another technique is adding content that is not useful or even visible to the user of the website, some examples being:

• Keyword stuffing – adding keywords multiple times to a page
• Hidden text – adding text the same colour as the background

Keeping up-to-date with these changes is vital, not only to comply with Google and other search engine requirements but also to deliver a website that is going to be relevant and useful to the user, which after all is exactly what search engines are trying to achieve.

Content is king and providing relevant, well written content for your visitor is not only going to help them find what they are looking for on your website, but also gives your site the best chance of moving up the page rankings.

For more information about Search Engine Optimisation visit our Search Engine Optimisation page.

Mark Langston