Ripples of excitement spread through the SEO universe last weekend with rumours that Google had released their latest Penguin update.
And soon enough the gossip mongers were proved right when a Google representative confirmed news of the release, less than 10 days after Bruce Clay suggested that an update was imminent at a Las Vegas conference.
It’s been a year since the last Penguin update and any results brought about by the new Penguin 3.0 are difficult to detect at this early stage.
But if the immediate reaction on social media was anything to go by, the impact has been minimal to say the least.
Publishing a series of screen shots via Twitter, Moz’s Cyrus Shepard illustrated how some reporting stations were showing sharp inclines, some showed sharp declines, and others not showing much of a fluctuation at all.
Strange Data: What Google’s Penguin 3.0 looked like from 7 reporting stations around the world pic.twitter.com/eVJ93emc52
— Cyrus Shepard (@CyrusShepard) October 19, 2014
Meanwhile Russ Jones of Virante has speculated that there’s a chance that this iteration of Penguin is eluding the SEO volatility tools.
Penguin 3.0 seems to have eluded many of the search volatility tools. @AuthorityLabs looks like we should revisit building a proper one.
— rjonesx (@rjonesx) October 19, 2014
Whereas Dr Pete Myers of Moz claims to have seen no signs of any large-scale shakeup in the SERPS, claiming the data he’s seeing is unlike that of other Penguin updates in previous years.
Not seeing any signs yet of a large-scale Penguin shake-up yesterday. If it did happen, more likely big changes to a small # of sites.
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) October 19, 2014
Google is verifying. This data looks nothing like Penguin 1.0, though – something has changed.
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) October 19, 2014
Obviously the fact that we’re seeing little activity in terms of sites getting massively boosted or downranked, is encouraging for now.
But all this speculation needs to be taken with a pinch of salt until Google explain precisely what they intend to achieve with their latest update.
Until they officially recognise its existence by publishing their own thoughts and findings, we still won’t know exactly what the full impact of Penguin 3.0. will be.
Watch this space…