Is there a Penguin Time Limit

[Berner]

Hi, so I am curious if Penguin has a time limit?

Like say after 90 days it resets and looks to see if any penalties still exist?

Thank you

[rishil]

No it doesn't. You need to disavow and remove as many bad links. Unlike a manual penalty, which has a time limit reset factor, penguin is algorithmic, so the filter will keep your site down if you don't do anything about it.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

No, as Rishi said there is not. It used to be in the beginning that Google would provide a date when there had been a Penguin update, but by now the 'Penguin algorithm' has been fully integrated.

[MarieHaynes]

Be careful not to confuse manual penalties and algorithmic link based issues (i.e. Penguin).  This might be worth a read: http://moz.com/blog/the-difference-between-penguin-and-an-unnatural-links-penalty-and-some-info-on-panda-too

If you've got a manual penalty, they can expire but often it takes years to expire.  If you've got issues with the Penguin algorithm then your site will remain affected by Penguin until the algorithm sees that you have fully cleaned up.

[MarieHaynes]

Hi Martjin,

"by now the 'Penguin algorithm' has been fully integrated."

I think you may be confusing Panda and Penguin.  Panda has been integrated into the algorithm and Google doesn't give us updates on when it happens.  But, for now Penguin is still an announced event as far as we know.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Marie, I know that Google announced a couple of them, but although I don't have proof I don't think it's reasonable that they haven't had a new Penguin update since October 2013 if I follow the change history by Dr. Pete: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Also when seeing this thread at SearchEngineLand and Matt Cutts response mentioning a mild Penguin that clearly shows that there is something more structural going on then it seems in my opinion.

[MarieHaynes]

It's certainly possible that Penguin refreshes without Google telling us, but if it has happened, no one in the SEO world has been able to definitively pick it up and there are many of us who monitor a large number of Penguin hit sites.  Last year John Mueller said something in a hangout that implied that Penguin was refreshing regularly.  I wrote about it in my blog, here.  However, John quickly responded on Google+ saying, "I was probably a bit too fast there :). While we do rerun link analysis regularly, the “Penguin” algorithm is in the stage we don’t do regular pushes of all of the data in the same way that we update Panda once a month or so, for example. We’re always working on improving that, of course."

Now, that was a while ago and it's possible that things have changed, but my belief is that Penguin is still in the stage where there are only announced refreshes and updates at this point.

In this recent Webmaster Central Hangout at about 17:18 someone asked John if Google would announce when it would start baking Penguin into the algorithm like Panda and he said he couldn't promise if that would happen.  In this March 24 hangout at 16:30 when John was asked when the next refresh would be, he replied, "It’s been a while, so hopefully we can do one soon."

I've seen what Matt Cutts was talking about in regards to sites getting affected with "just a little bit of Penguin".  These are sites that have good links along with some bad ones.  Instead of seeing a dramatic drop to page 10+ they may drop 5-10 places or so.  But, in almost every case, in order to recover a Penguin refresh has to happen.  I don't believe that this means that they were affected at times other than a Penguin refresh.

With that being said, I've seen Dr. Pete postulate that Penguin might be having regular little refreshes that are unannounced but that's not the popular opinion.  (Sorry Dr. Pete....I'm sure you'll be ok with me disagreeing with you, right?)

I do believe that Google finds ways to discount bad links and some sites can see a devaluation in rankings that happens at a time other than a Penguin refresh because of this.  But, if a site is affected by the Penguin algorithm, as far as I understand, at this point they can't escape Penguin until Google refreshes the algorithm again.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Great response Marie! I'm not going to add anything to it because I don't want to end up in a useless discussion. I don't think that's of value to anybody

[Dr-Pete]

The Penguin refresh comments, on my part, have been entirely speculative. It's hard to believe Google would go that long without some kind of data refresh on something with such wide repercussions. On the other hand, the data so far seems to suggest that that is what they're doing. I have no credible evidence, other than my own disbelief, that a site hit by Penguin can escape Penguin outside of a confirmed update.

I hate being at Google's mercy for knowing when updates happen, and I do believe that Penguin will be more tightly integrated over time, but I also am fairly sure that Penguin had wide-ranging collateral damage that Google didn't entirely foresee. I think they're still trying to wrestle the Penguin update themselves.

So, for now, the best evidence I have is that the only Penguin updates are the ones we know about. I can't prove it either way. I definitely don't think it's like Panda. I wonder if they occasionally do smaller data-only refreshes on Penguin, but I can't back that up.