Over recent years Google has stunned and shocked webmasters around the world by releasing algorithm updates that change the way websites are ranked. The latest of these changes, following hot on the heels of the Panda update, has been Google Penguin.

The Google Penguin update was released on April 24, 2012 and had the express aim targeting black hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, article spinning and other shady strategies used by Internet Marketers across the World.

In order to still rank your website successfully for the keywords you want to rank for, you need to adapt your SEO strategy so that it is more inline with what Google is looking for following Penguin.

In this article we are going to look at the various Do’s and Don’ts of Google Penguin so that you can have a good strategy to go out into the world of Search Engine Optimization. We will also look at the other updates that are likely to come about as the Google Penguin algorithm is continually updated.

First and foremost, you want to stop using Public Blog Networks as Google has penalized these very strongly with Penguin. As more and more of them become de-indexed there is little value in pursuing these type of links any longer.

Secondly, when building links to your website you want to make sure that you vary the anchor text as using the same anchor text again and again is frowned upon by Google.

Thirdly, you want to start building links to your site in a more natural way. This involves writing great content and using white hat techniques like guest blogging and press releases, instead of blog networks, etc.

As Google Penguin has made SEO become a more hands on process the effectiveness of SEO tools has declined significantly. To combat this you need to do things more manually. As a result it may be better to hire a Virtual Assistant on a part time basis, than it will be to spend money on an expensive piece of SEO software.

While Google claims that Google Penguin has only affected about 3.1% of web searches it seems as though more people than that have been affected if you read any prominent Internet Marketing forum at the moment. This may be because Internet Marketers like to specialize in building small niche websites and these have been prone to using slightly shady link building practices which Google doesn’t like.

It has been announced that Google are going to continue to roll out new versions of the Google Penguin algorithm. Some have speculated that this is to keep webmasters on their toes and to force some SEOs onto the Adwords platform to buy advertising. Whether this is true or not is a different matter.

A good way to counteract Google Penguin is to build an Authority site instead of building tons of small sites that are harder to naturally attract links for. This requires a change of business strategy for some Internet Marketers, but, it can be well worth it as Authority sites can be extremely profitable.