Google’s Penguin update has succeeded in creating quite a buzz since its first public announcement in April, 2012. This step was aimed at discouraging the process of link scheming, implemented to synthetically increase rankings of the website by increasing the number of links directing to that page.

Let’s take a quick recap tour of the official updates released so far for Penguin:

• Penguin 1.0- April 24, 2012 (impacting nearly 3.1% of the queries)
• Penguin 1.1- May 26, 2012 (impacting <0.1% of queries)
• Penguin 1.2- October 5, 2012 (impacting nearly 0.3% of queries)
• Penguin 2.0- May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)
• Penguin 2.1- October 4, 2013 (impacting around 1% of the queries)
• Penguin 3.0- October 17, 2014 (impacting <1% English queries)

Google’s Pierre Far directed some light over the Penguin 3.0 update, or rather ‘refresh’ as he calls it! Here’s a basic summary of the key points for Penguin 3.0:

• Is a world-wide roll out, impacting all versions of Google irrespective of the language or regional variations.
• Will continue rolling out for the ‘next few weeks’ as stated by Pierre Far.
• Impacts less than 1% English queries (may have different impact on other languages)
• On October 21, 2014, Google’s Pierre Far confirmed that Penguin 3.0 is an algorithm ‘refresh’ and not an ‘update’.
• It demotes sites with bad profile links and is aimed at discouraging Black Hat SEO techniques.
• It helps recover rankings for sites that were affected by past Penguin updates.

With a ‘RECOVER-PROTECT-BUILD’ approach, Penguin 3.0 is all about relegating bad link building strategies like link swaps, forum/blog spamming and syndication among many others. Adding fresh content on your website can help improve your rankings. In addition to this, check for canonicalization issues and be active on the social media to add relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
With more updates or ‘refreshes’ in the line; Optimization and Improvisation is the need of the hour!