Michael and I have been discussing theories on why Google is not really changing the algorithm much over the last year. It makes ‘news’ slow and test results stay the same.
We’re only 22 days away from the Penguin 2.1 anniversary. So far in 2014, all of Google’s changes have been cosmetic or minor tweaks. The Panda 4.0 update was only a tweak for how the penalty was applied and it actually eased up enough to let some sites recover. The few sites that got hit deserved it as they failed the copy-paste test before they got hit; in other words our test would have saved them.
The good news is everything has been predictable and stable. The only issues have been manual reviewers killing sites, and a really long “sandbox” to rank for new competitive queries. We’ve turned a good bit of our focus towards getting around both problems.
One theory we had early on was that Google has a processing power limitation. We knew this back when Penguin 2.1 came out and they had to create Hummingbird; a new engine for the algorithm to be able to run. It replaced Caffeine.
We knew that Penguin was a massive task to run across an entire algorithm as it basically had to search, then re-search, and re-sort all of the SERPs for every single query. That is not an easy task to pull off. We read the patents and made our own diagram of it first released here:
PageRank Dead With Authorship Again?
Remember how PageRank was “dead” last year with no future of it being fixed? PageRank always had a “chicken and egg” problem for where the juice “starts.” Now add TrustRank with the hand-picked trusted sites like Wikipedia and you can imagine how long it takes to run a simple PageRank or TrustRank update.
When Google killed Authorship, one of the surprising reasons Google cited was “processing power” and how they had to be smarter about where the processing power is used.
Also, many of our members, including ourselves, have noticed extremely slow indexing and cache delays. The only answer we’ve been able to provide is “Google’s too far behind to keep up.” Again, this is a processing power problem.
What Happens Next?
John Mueller, whom Michael has been stalking for the past couple years anticipating Matt Cutts’ retirement, made a statement on a Google Hangout about Penguin 3. He was first asked about Penguin 2.1 and just doing a simple refresh to let the sites who had their penalties lifted actually get their penalties lifted. His answer was that it’s basically way too much work for the algorithm to do that.
This confirms that Google has a serious processing power problem. However he goes on to say that Penguin 3 will come out before the end of the year.
What Will Penguin 3 Do?
Well, let’s look at what’s wrong with the algorithm today: a ton of private link networks powered by expired domains. What’s the easiest way to fix it? Tiered relevance.
Tiered relevance is basically running Penguin’s relevance factor on the linking sites themselves. Keep in mind this will kill a lot of general blogs and news sites’ SEO power. Why? They have backlinks from everywhere and don’t focus on any one thing in particular. But it is certainly an option for Penguin 3 to fix their huge expired domain exploit right now.
Ghost Links Value?
One part of the algorithm that people keep complaining about is “ghost links” or “removed links” or “link echoes” as Moz calls it.
This should also confirm for everyone buying expired domains asking questions like, “what if half the links have been removed?” – Right now, they aren’t really being removed as a factor. Great news.
Google is putting a lot of weight in the age of a link. When they refresh the algorithm, that link date is restarted. In other words, your old links will probably lose their value this time around and nail a lot of expired domains who lost their true link power.
On a positive note, the “sandbox period” will also probably be reset.
Protecting Yourself
As we advised our Private Network Training students back in the spring: if possible, buy expired domains relevant to your niche. We preached on two aspects: code diversity and tiered relevance to be “Zebra-friendly.” These are the two big factors that Google can target if they get enough processing power to do it. If you buy smart and make your sites look different, you will be just fine.
With all of the PBN training launches, domain prices are skyrocketing with newbies flooding the market. We can almost “feel” when a launch happened just by looking at the prices. Wait a few weeks and it’s back to normal. Penguin 3 might knock enough of the amateurs out to bring prices down to a reasonable level from now on. We’re looking forward to this update.
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