An Oct 2016 recap of changes to Penguin and RankBrain and how they would impact SEO and website performance

1. GOOGLE CHANGES – RANK BRAIN AND PENGUIN 4.0
LINDA GROENDYKE
OCTOBER 2016

2. KEY SEARCH ENGINE ELEMENTS
There are three major elements of the Google Indexing program that impact overall
rankings. One is focused on Content Quality (Panda), one is focused on SPAM tactics
(Penguin) and one if focused on keyword matching (RankBrain).
2Panda PenguinRankBrain

3. RANKBRAIN AND PENGUIN UPDATES
In the past 6 months, there were major updates to both RankBrain and Penguin that are
impacting Search Engine Results.
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PenguinRankBrain
Early 2015, RankBrain and impacted 10 -15% of
Search Results
Early 2016, RankBrain was fully released and
impact majority of Search Queries
Launched in 2012 to evaluate SPAM sites and
SPAM Linking
October 2014, Last release of Penguin 3.0 to
enforce Google Linking Guidelines

4. PENGUIN 4.0 UPDATES
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5. PENGUIN 4.0 RELEASE FEATURES
 Feature:
 Penguin Analysis is More Granular
 Impact:
 The algorithm will focused on the specific pages toxic links are pointing to, rather than on the whole
websites. Instead of penalizing a whole site, it will impact the page and any connected pages
 Client Impact:
 Monitoring of Link Quality and SEO impact will need to be done on a Page level instead of across the
entire domain
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6. PENGUIN 4.0 RELEASE FEATURES
 Feature:
 Global Location and Language Release
 Impact:
 The update was released for all countries and all languages at the same time, so all websites will
experience the same impact independent of their location
 Client Impact:
 Since the sites are in English and in the United States, there is minimal additional impact
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7. PENGUIN 4.0 RELEASE FEATURES
 Feature:
 Penguin is real-time now
 Impact:
 A web page’s rankings can change each time Google updates the information about this page and any
pages linking to it.
 Client Impact:
 Opportunity for positive impacts of page updated will become noticeable faster. However, any negative
changes will take place more quickly as well.
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8. PENGUIN 4.0 RELEASE FEATURES
 Feature:
 Real-Time Penalty Recovery
 Impact:
 If a site is penalized and changes are made to improve the issue and/or remove harmful links, you’ll see
positive results more quickly after Google recrawls your page
 Client Impact:
 Any linking updates or SPAM issues can be more fixed and more quickly updated
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9. RANKBRAIN
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10. WHAT IS RANKBRAIN?
 Google's Machine Learning System
 This system applies artificial intelligence to help provide more ‘human’ understanding and better quality
search results.
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Single Algorithm
(All Users, All Types)
Query Based Algorithm
(Tailor to Query Group)
Individual User Algorithm
Evolution of Google Algorithm

11. WHAT DOES RANKBRAIN DO FOR GOOGLE?
• Learns about words and phrases that are not familiar through an automated process
• Works to create connections between topics by plugging in Knowledge Graph and other Data sources
• Increases matching success for results from 70% for Human Engineering results to 80% for RankBrain
results
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12. WHAT DOES RANKBRAIN DO FOR CONTENT?
 Feature
 Keyword Clustering
 Impact
 Creates relationships between words. Before individual words and phrases were used, and not word
clusters are used.
 Client Impact
 Instead of being focused on optimizing for a singular keyword like Orthopedics, combination of words
and tenses such as Ortho and Orthopedic will be understood as having the same intent for users.
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13. WHAT DOES RANKBRAIN DO FOR CONTENT?
 Feature
 Context for New Terminology
 Impact
 New Keywords will be aligned with groupings of terms more quickly with Articial Intelligence instead of
human research
 Client Impact
 New Medical Technologies will more quickly be associated with corresponding fields when keywords are
discovered to have relationships with other content topics.
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14. WHAT DOES MEAN FOR YOUR CONTENT
 Writing user-friendly copy takes on more importance as RankBrain associated Search Query language to
results.
 Building linking relationships between new services and existing services will help to more clearly define
the relationship between content on a client website.
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