Googles’ Webmaster trends analyst stated on Twitter this week that the new penguin algorithm is due to roll out within weeks.

The tweet was made off the back of weeks of speculation on social media after website owners noticed significant disturbances and fluctuations in google rankings. Google often makes small changes that often go unnoticed, but the recent fluctuations have fuelled the rumour mill about the imminent roll out of the penguin 4 algorithm.

New Penguin 4 Algorithm Launch Imminent

“I’ll go with weeks. We’re aiming for launching penguin this quarter, but we don’t have a more precise timeframe” Gary Illyes -Google Webmaster Trends Analyst

Google has today confirmed that the changes in rankings of the past couple of weeks has in fact been due to changes they are making to the core algorithm, but is not the appearance of Penguin 4.

What is The Penguin Algorithm?

The Penguin algorithm, first launched back in April 2012, is designed to fight against spam link tactics and monitor the quality of links to a website. Updates have been released every few years since release, having major effects in the digital industry, with changes to search results being noticeable with each new release. Although there always seems to be a certain air of apprehension surrounding these releases, this latest one in particular, Penguin is mostly positive for those taking the time and effort to ensure their digital marketing is done properly. Not so for those trying to ‘cheat the system’. These so called ‘Black Hat’ Marketers will find it much more difficult to achieve underserved Google rankings.

So What’s Different this Time?

Googles’ last update in October 2014, Penguin 3 was technically just a refresh, whereas Penguin 4 is an update. A refresh serves only to demote sites that have spam signals that have appeared since the last update and also helps site that have rectified their spam issues since the last update

Penguin 4 is rumoured to be a real time algorithm, meaning that as soon as Google discovers a suspicious link, it will process it in real time. This means that any website trying to flout the rules can be penalised much faster. On the plus side though, any website willing to put in the effort to correct the problem quickly, will recover their ranking faster too.

In typical Google fashion, details are few and far between, and we’ll not likely know exactly what Penguin 4 entails until it launches, which according to Gary Illyes, should at the very latest, be by the end of this quarter.