Marketers don’t know the exact date of Google’s Penguin algorithm update, but they are already preparing for it, according to BrightEdge’s 2013 Search Marketer Survey. The first three versions (Penguin 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2) have been punishing sites with spammy link profiles since they were introduced last year, and the upcoming release is expected to have a major impact on marketers’ SEO strategies in 2013 and beyond.
To remain in good standings with Google’s search crawlers, marketers are keeping close tabs on internal site links. The survey found 36 percent think it’s much more important to automatically analyze every page for low-quality links, while another 36 percent agree that verifying backlink origins is more important now than it was in 2012.
The Penguin algorithm appears to have a side-effect as well. The BrightEdge survey found that marketers are also paying more attention to internal linking strategies to make sure pages are contributing to better navigation and user experience.
While marketers aren’t yet certain what the Penguin update will hold, they can brace themselves by sticking to industry best practices, according to Brafton. Posting high-quality custom content, featuring attractive graphics and educational video content, will generate organic backlinks that boost web authority and search rankings naturally.
