Penguin 3.0 rolled out in October 2014 and was a significant data refresh that continued to target websites with low-quality link profiles. The Everflux, on the other hand, pertains to the shift from spontaneous updates to continuous ones for the algorithm.
The Penguin filter was first launched in April 2012 to work with Panda in reducing the number of low-quality content in the SERPs. While the latter targeted sites with thin content, Penguin’s focus was on domains that used black hat techniques to manipulate their way to the top spots in the results pages.
The previous update, Penguin 2.1, improved on the algorithm’s ability to detect websites with low-quality links such as those from link farms, article directories, and comment spam. It identified the links associated with a page and evaluated the quality of those connections whether they’re from authoritative sources or not.
Penguin 3.0 and Everflux were primarily data refreshes. Both continued the work that its predecessors started in fighting against webspam by targeting low-quality backlinks.
No new signals were introduced for Penguin 3.0. Nonetheless, it was still a significant update; entailing a slow rollout worldwide. It still had an effect on less than one percent for English searches while having a more significant impact in other languages where spam is more prevalent.
The announcement of Everflux implied that algorithmic changes would no longer be processed offline. Before the update, Google would sift through data offline and publish it at a specified time along with new information for the indexed pages. With Everflux, the process will be done in real-time which may mean that penalties and recoveries may be instantaneous.
Several websites that were hit during the previous algorithm updates and took action to clean up their link profiles recovered with Penguin 3.0. Link cleanup involves eliminating unnatural links and disavowing the spammy ones.
A significant issue for link cleanup was when low-quality links replicate, particularly across spammy directories. The process is automated, so site owners have to check and clean their link profile regularly to make sure that there aren’t any new ones.
One essential practice you should have for your website is to check your link profile regularly. It’s crucial that you clean it up so that you won’t have to reap the repercussions of a Penguin penalty. Monitoring the sources of your inbound links is a valuable defense against negative SEO and auto-replicating unnatural links.
Here are two tools you can use to track your backlinks: