This article is posted in the SEO Tampa (www.affordableseofl.com) blog on 5/08/12.
At first the Google Penguin update became known for being an over optimisation penalty, but Google claimed that the update was actually a web-spam algorithm change to remove spam pages. It has now become clear though that it is more than spam, either that or Google have a very different idea of what constitutes spam. The important thing to know is that if you have a site with good quality content you could be affected by this Google Penguin update if you have used techniques such as keyword stuffing and certain back link building techniques.
Spam then in Google’s eyes can still be the pages people actually wanted to visit just because they have used border line black hat techniques. What Google now serve up for a lot of queries seems to be the same few authority sites: with how relevant they are being less important than authority. Even those sites that haven’t used Black Hat SEO, or haven’t used SEO at all even, have been penalised by the Google Penguin update, or perhaps the Panda 3.5 update the week before, as authority sites now rank higher.