Google updated it’s search engine algo on April 25th and named the update “Penguin update” 24 hours later. Initially, it didn’t had a name and was called the “webspam update”. It’s anybody’s guess that they didn’t expect the update to make such a huge impact on major websites worldwide. Once they came to know about the large scale impact the update made, they named it as “Penguin update”.
One thing was sure though, they did know that this update will be bigger than all the smaller Panda updates in the past, as Matt Cutts kept on mentioning several points in the official blog saying a webspam update was near. He also kept on repeating that its not an update against SEO but it’s purely againt Over-Optimization (Spam linking, unethical methods, etc).
However, after the update, many would differ as the search results quality for a wide variety of searches has gone down. There are several examples pointed out by many in their blogs where searches threw totally unrelated and spam results. In most cases, it threw up sites with no content at all! This link here also mentions in detail how this update destroyed thousands of online businesses worldwide.  There are several such examples of how the Penguin Update went wrong.
A big question however is : Whether this is a Warning call for SEO’s? (Search Engine Optimizer’s)
Yes, it is. Given the kind of results Google threw. It indeed is a warning call. This update defies the basic structure on which Google was founded : The Google Page Rank. Â They deviated bit too far even though nobody is sure , whether its a technical glitch or a well thought strategy. Several theories are floating like, its an attempt to increase Google Adwords business in a last ditch effort to counter the new giant – Facebook Ads. Whatever the scenario, Google never did enough to interact with the SEO community before going for this major change which put businesses at great loss.
So what’s in store for SEO’s / webmasters / business owners?
1. Diversify
Diversify into other areas for getting traffic. Facebook, twitter and other social networks do bring a substantial amount of traffic. Secondly, product sellers should look out for Ebay, Amazon like sites to survive in business. Â Google Adwords is an option but by choosing Adwords, you are falling prey to Google’s intentions of generating business through ads.
2. Wait
Google will not be able to hold on to this update for long. The reason is quite simple, if they do, they will be overtaken by other search engines and may be we see an increase in Bing users in future. So its just matter of time that Google realises the long term benefits of working in harmony with the SEO and webmaster’s community worldwide.
3. Don’t Lose hope
The day you lose hope, its all over. So continue working on your site to bring traffic from other mediums and sources. Create interesting content for users and keep in touch with your visitors through feed subscriptions and social networking sites. Ignore Google for a while and work on other areas.
It would not be too long for Google to realise that “After eating all the fishes in the pond, it’s fate is sealed too!”
I agree with your stance. I have had my site demoted, and I use no black hat at all. One of my competitors link building spammy article site was showing 2 pages above my money site. His spammy article site is written, “In every single game of baseball do have many teams that you can find along the way that they have their different baseball trading pins. This Trading Pins is one of the quite unique items that you can find through their wear and gear in time for your needs.”
I have a real website google, hello. Needless to say I am unable to pay for seo now since i have no business. Congrats for making sure the rich guy can keep paying for it. The spammer is making more money than ever. Always at the top of google by using his spammy article sites. Whatever penguin did to destroy spam and seo I am not seeing it!
I agree with most of what you said – Penguin is a warning call (just like Panda kind of was), and there is more need than ever to diversify. Still, I don’t think “ignoring Google” is going to do anyone any good. They say that site owners just need to focus on quality content, yet it’s still necessary to use as much whitehat SEO as you still can to rank well. Failure to do so could leave you in the dust while your competitors are still plugging away at what works.