“Lots of people were asking me when the next Penguin update would happen, as if they expected Penguin updates to happen on a monthly basis and as if Penguin would only involve data refreshes.

If you remember, in the early days of Panda, it took several months for us to iterate on the algorithm, and the Panda impact tended to be somewhat larger (e.g. the April 2011 update incorporated new signals like sites that users block).

Later on, the Panda updates had less impact over time as we stabilized the signals/algorithm and Panda moved closer to near-monthly updates.
Likewise, we’re still in the early stages of Penguin where the engineers are incorporating new signals and iterating to improve the algorithm.

Because of that, expect that the next few Penguin updates will take longer, incorporate additional signals, and as a result will have more noticeable impact. It’s not the case that people should just expect data refreshes for Penguin quite yet.”

“You don’t want the next Penguin update, the engineers have been working hard. [...] The updates are going the be jarring and jolting for a while. [...]

Webmasters who want to get as much visibility as possible should look at the spectrum of value their’re adding.”

Google’s Penguin updates target websites that use spam tactics to get high rankings on Google. Some of these tactics are cloaking, paid links, and automatically created links (forum profile links, blog comment spam, etc.)

If you use spam techniques to promote your website, chances are that your website rankings will drop with Google’s next Penguin update. If you use any tools that uses words such as “secret trick”, “exploit”, “fully automated” or “auto-pilot” then it’s likely that your rankings are at risk.

For every loser in the search results, there will be a winner. If you don’t use shady techniques to promote your website, you don’t have to be afraid of Google’s next Penguin updates.

The rankings of websites that use white-hat SEO methods will not be affected by algorithm updates that target spammers.

If you want to be on the winning side, avoid spam techniques and use white-hat SEO methods that are beneficial to search engines, web searchers and your business.