Penguin 101: What Google Penguin Means to Bloggers, Really

Here are three articles currently online that provide solid information for bloggers out there who are concerned about Google Penguin and don't want to cull through all the SEO-ese to find out the basic stuff they need to know.

1.  Google Penguin - Wikipedia's article.
2.  "Act Natural. The Penguin is Looking," by Business 2 Community.
3. "3 Hard Lessons to Learn From Penguin: Be Relevant, Be Balanced, Keep it Real" at SearchEngineWatch.

Yes, Google just announced a Penguin update.  There's no need to panic - if you're not doing "black hat" search engine optimization tricks to try and maneuver your stuff to the top of Google's search results.

Penguin in a Nutshell.

Once again:  Google is trying to give its customers the best service it can, and this means putting the most accurate, on-point sites in the top of search results when a Google client surfs Google for information.  After all, if Google doesn't do this well - if Yahoo or Bing do this better, in other words - then Google will lose business.

Penguin and Panda before it and whatever animal comes next -- all are ways that Google is trying to insure the quality of its service in a world where lots of folks spend lots of time and money trying to game the system ("black hats") to get their links into the top of search results.

It's fine to try and write your content in a way that helps your readers find your stuff.  It's not okay to do things like stuffing sites with links just to sway the Googlebot.  

Help Google Help You.

Bloggers should keep their intended reader in mind as they write their blog posts.  They should also keep Google in mind as they write those short blog articles.  Do the best for your readers and for Google, and you'll be fine. 

Image from FreeClipArtNow.com.