What Exactly is Over Optimization of a Website According to Google Penguin?

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Google has recently rolled out their new Search Algorithm in the process of cleaning their Data Base from Spam Links and Spam Pages. They are always striving for providing better user experience. It is also accepted that the current Google Search engine is 100 times ahead of what it was a few years ago. In 2011, they unveiled the revolutionary Panda Update which is considered as almost the end of Article Marketing Strategies by using Black Hat SEO, and now in 2012 they’ve rolled out Penguin which takes care of over optimization of a webpage, and link quality metrics. In this post, we’ll be doing with why Google is changing their Search Algorithm and what exactly is over optimization.

According to me Niche blogging, is one of the prime reasons that lead Google to consider the changes in Algorithm. The Niche blogging is nothing but, creating a crappy content based website by focussing on high CPC keywords or a website that focuses on an Affiliate product. As far as I concern, these sites don’t carry any value, and they were built just for money, I don’t want to say that all these niche sites are crappy, but the major reason that these sites were created is definitely the dollar factor.

Why Google is Changing their Search Algorithm?

One of the major Reasons is to support unique players instead of drug takers (black hatters). Let us consider an example website, where the major keyword of that niche site is HD PVR’s and the major goal of the author is to write about various HD PVR devices, and too offer them few discount coupons or profit sharing options, etc. by making them to visit the affiliate links any purchasing the HD PVR’s from your links which ultimately provides you decent commissions and you’ll be sharing the percentage with the client from that commission. Instead of acting as affiliates, do you think that a webmaster will be just referring to prescribed site with an outgoing link to some other e-commerce websites where they can buy HD PVR’s, never. This states that almost every niche site existing in the web world is developed for commercial purpose.

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What Exactly is Over Optimization According to Penguin?

The above image, states everything for you. You can just see the word “Keyword” got used over 10 times in just a 40 word article. It is one of the best examples for over optimization.

Over Optimization also considers the factors like usage of Heading Tags, Duplicate Content, Too many Low Quality Links or too much of exact match anchor text, un-natural inter linking and many more. The basic motto of Penguin Over Optimization algorithm is all about writing content for users not for Search Bots.

Google requests webmasters to focus these Aspects in terms of Optimization.

• Use only 1 H1 Tag, don’t over use Heading Tags as well.
• Maintain Keyword density between 1.3% to 1.8% at max and don’t use a keyword more than 15 times.
• Using keywords in Image Alt tag must be reasonable.
• Let the link flow be manual.
• Contextual Links are getting more weightage than links that appear in author bio.
• Article Directories like Ezine Articles, ArticlesBase are carrying decent authority for your blog.
• Don’t ever link your blog to low quality sites, Google ways us to work hard.
• Be careful with Meta Description and Meta Tags.
• Interlinking of your blog/website should not exceed maximum of 7 – 8 reference links from a page.

These are the few major aspects that Google Penguin expects us to follow and if you follow them serious, there is no point of getting scared at Google Algorithmic changes.

About the Author:

Guest Post by Alex Christopher, who works as a Search Engine Analyst and loves to share his views about Search Engine Algorithmic Changes and many details at BloggersCage.

Were you hit by Google Penguin Update? What strategies do you think will work to improve the condition if you were hit negatively?