Google’s permanent quest to maximize relevant search results and minimize internet spam has introduced a few challenges along the way. Penguin 2.0 in May of last year saw some—though not all—businesses’ websites taking a massive hit to traffic and to their search ranking.

Google’s Penguin updates have historically rolled out in May (1.1) & October (1.2) 2012, and May (2.0) and October (2.1) of 2013. While we’re now overdue for Penguin 3.0, let’s be thankful for this opportunity to get ourselves educated and prepared in advance of the big release.

Is my website at risk?

Plenty of websites observed no significant changes after the update to Penguin 2.0. If you’re unsure whether or not your website was impacted, this useful tool from Barracuda Digital compares your Analytics history against Penguin update rollouts. Not everyone took a hit as a result of Penguin being updated, and Penguin 3.0 is not necessarily going to hurt you, either. However, Google is increasing its focus on relevance and traffic quality, and keeping abreast of their changes and values could help you to avoid an unexpected collapse.

For all the chatter that arose about its many damages, Penguin 2.0 actually affected about 2.3% of English-US queries. This low percentage is in fact a huge number – 115,000,000 affected searches per day in English alone – but Penguin is not some across-the-board beat-down. It’s important to remember that Google’s aim here is neither to make it more difficult to maintain a competitive ranking, nor is it to “shuffle things up.” Penguin attempts to target methods and practices that “game” the ranking system, with the goal of encouraging a cleaner internet. To that end, building up your rank cleanly will certainly give you a head start.

The Penguin Game: Mitigation and Recovery

While Penguin updates will not hit everyone equally, there’s no sure-fire way to avoid being affected; the changes are too far-reaching and widespread for us to simply sidestep them. What we can—and should—do, is take inventory, identify strengths and weaknesses, and prepare to react and recover once Penguin 3.0 has rolled out.

Mitigation: the “before” plan

Firstly, take inventory of your website. Each page on your site should provide some measure of value to your visitors and/or users. The pages that don’t fulfill that criterion probably are not helping you. If you’re feeling a bit disenchanted with the idea of deleting/un-publishing pages, consider instead the ways that you might be able to augment them!

Next, you’ll want to find whatever inbound links might qualify as “spam,” and get rid of them. The any press is good press moniker does not fly here; Google’s algorithm is designed to find, evaluate, and return results based on relevance, and when the ratio of external websites linking to yours is skewed heavily toward those seen as low-quality, you appear much less relevant resultantly. There are plenty of tools to help you with this process, like Majestic SEO.

When you’ve identified any existing bad links that you are able to, you’ll want to email the webmasters of those pages, politely asking them to take down the link to you. Following those emails, it’s also a good idea to disavow the links using Google’s Disavow Links Tool.

Recovery: the “anytime” plan

Recovery from Penguin updates is not strictly speaking a reparative measure. Approach this more as preventive care than corrective surgery. Useful for ‘rebuilding’ and recovery after Penguin updates, but useful the rest of the time, too. The best recovery plan is the one that you began yesterday. The good news: that will still be true tomorrow.

With cleaned up pages and internal links, and having removed and/or disavowed any questionable inbound links, it’s now a good idea to work on a new inbound link building campaign. You’ve done your part to minimize the “bad” links. Now work toward building up a strong collection of good inbound links. Guest blogging can be a useful tool, but be careful who you approach—and who you approve to post on your own blog. In the past, backlinks were a numbers game. Not anymore. You want quality links going both ways, and quality content; don’t trade one for the other.

Remember the 3 pillars of SEO: content, links, social. These are safe, white hat, reliable ways to make yourself relevant and to stay that way. And remember: Google is looking for signs of relevance. It’s not about tricking the system or finding Easter eggs. There are plenty of great white hat ways to build quality inbound links and generate social buzz. For an SEO strategy that will survive and thrive through Penguin’s algorithmic changes, reject black hat techniques, and instead build your SEO strategy around a focus on quality content and social engagement.

© Dan Wells, DemGen Inc. 2014