Is SEO Dead after Google Penguin Update 2012?

[Pakistan The Best]

Google rolled put their Penguin Update in mid April 2012 and it penalized websites by displaying irrelevant search results. A lot of SEO giants have gone bankrupt. Some critics are saying its Google way of minting money through Google Adwords. Whats your say?

[Kevin]

No mate, seo lives on but we have to adapt. traffic can be driven through means other than serps...yahoo answers for example

[johns Smith]

No, my friend it will just make narrow way for spamming activities. As google prefer only on organic results. thus it want to separate out spam sites from ranking so that organic websites may keep good from google.

[Casey]

Everytime a new algorithm updates comes out you can pretty much bet on reading an article titled "Is SEO Dead?". The funny thing is that Google updates their algorithm over a hundred times a year, but you mainly only hear about the big updates such as Panda and Penguin.

SEO is still very solid and the people that fail are the people that are trying to manipulate the search engines to get better rankings. The truth is that if you focus on creating good quality content that provides the best user experience you will be successful with proper optimization techniques.

People who try to manipulate this with weak content, non relevant information, and spammy or black hat sites will be penalized and removed from the index. If you think about it, it's better for all people this way.

[FRiKi]

SEO will never be completely dead, but we have to learn new stuff after every update. This latest Penguin update is lame. I know so many webmasters, some of them do blackhat, some of them do legit SEO, but I have a feeling this Penguin update is just bad. My websites are on the same positions they were before, but there are strange things going on.

I have 2 connected websites from the same niche, ranked on page 2 for very tough keyword. Didn't do any SEO work on them for almost 6 months because they will be launched in a few months. One of them has blackhat SEO made, one of them has legit SEO. Legit SEO website lost position for that keyword and is nowhere to be found, blackhat website made it on the first site although I didn't do any SEO on them for 6 months.

I fully expect website to be back in few weeks, because this version of Penguin is just bad.

[Usman]

Well I would say to some extent yes. The best practices of SEO have changed. Its the length of the posts that matter the most. To rank higher you need to have a high Page Rank like for example PR 6 to PR 7. Google trusts the websites that are small so limit the number of pages in your website and start producing content that gets at least 100+ shares per post on Google +. Google + will definitely gotta enhance your page rank so go for it. Another tip is to stop commenting on other blog and start building junk and naked links that have virtually no importance to webmaster in eyes of Google. The best answer will be de-optimize your website and fill it with useful content and Google will give you much deserved reward.

[Kim Cunnings]

As Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land said, "If SEO is dead, it sure has been taking its time dying", meaning that SEO has been dead a gazillion times already!!!

However, what's different now, is that Penguin affected about 3% of all queries, which is really A LOT. Just think about it, it's almost every 33rd website!!!!

And, unlike during the previous updates, a lot of white-hat, legitimate sites have been affected. If you remember, in Panda days, the guys complaining were basically really crappy sites. Well, now it's different.

Looks like Google is heading in the wrong direction with Penguin. Some people have been talking about Google committing suicide - might as well be the case!

But, hey, does this mean all SEO managers should now just quit their jobs? I don't think so. We have survived so many algorithm changes in the past, and if there is anything we've learned from them is to avoid knee-jerk reaction and to be patient.

I'm sure that, no matter how search engines change and what market share Google has in the future, as long as there are search engines - there will be SEO's.

I also wanted to ask the OP, what SEO giants are you talking about? I know some very reputable SEO services providers who are saying that some of their clients got hit pretty badly, but they're not saying they've gone bankrupt... So, I was just curious.

Also, in SEO it's always good to have a plan B (don't put all your eggs in one basket, remember?). I really like the plan Link Assistant proposed a few days ago, which is, basically, to see who's ranking at top now, analyze their backlinks, anchor texts and content.

You then get an idea what backlinks, anchors and content Google likes (supposedly). Link Assistant also offer tools to do that. Sounds to me like the most realistic post-Penguin plan I've heard so far!

[Mary Ann]

So on 4/23 my hits dropped to a 1/4 of what they were before that, is this what effected my website hits?