What triggers Penguin?

[ozsubasi]

I've got this theory, and was wondering what others think of it. I am struggling to understand why some sites have been hit by Penguin, and others which seem prime candidates for what it is supposed to be the target, have come through apparently unscathed.
So this post is specifically on that subject, and not on the effects of or the recovery from Penguin.
What started me on my chain of thought was that when I erroneously submitted for reconsideration after the update, I received a standard reply to the effect that as Google did not detect any manual penalties to my site, there was nothing to reconsider.
What if a similar approach is taken when Penguin is run?

I don't know the mechanics of how algorithms work so maybe my idea just couldn't happen, but here it is anyway.
Say that when Penguin is applied, it first looks for a certain set of signals. If it doesn't find them it just moves on, but if it does then this pulls the lever which opens the bomb doors to a full blast of Penguin.
In all likelihood this would involve a number of signals and the presence of a certain number of them or some kind of score for them. But to simplify things, for the sake of arguement and example, let's say there was just one, and it was the page title.
If this were crammed with keywords and overtly spammy, Penguin would want to look further. But If it was in order, it would bypass further investigation.

If this were the case, then sites which either happened or didn't happen to have any problems with these key signals, would be either pulled apart or left alone. What do you think please?

[ozsubasi]

Thanks for sharing this thread, very important and useful question now days, any one who wants to know more about Google penguin can visit this link :- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Penguin .

Thank you for the link, but I tried to make the subject of the thread very clear:
"I am struggling to understand why some sites have been hit by Penguin, and others which seem prime candidates for what it is supposed to be the target, have come through apparently unscathed.
So this post is specifically on that subject, and not on the effects of or the recovery from Penguin."
There are other threads already discussing the update itself.

Do you have any thoughts on the post please?

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

I wish i knew.. I have seen alot of improvement for some keywords but other nothing for the same page/website. So I am still lost as ever..

For San Antonio Homes for Sale, i have moved back to Page 2 from page 28, I was on page 1 before the update.. For San Antonio Real Estate the home page of my San Antonio site is still no where to be found in the top 61 pages for that term..

[ozsubasi]

I wish i knew.. I have seen alot of improvement for some keywords but other nothing for the
same page/website. So I am still lost as ever..
For San Antonio Homes for Sale, i have moved back to Page 2 from page 28, I was on page 1 before the update.. For San Antonio
Real Estate the home page of my San Antonio site is still no where to be found in the top 61 pages for that term..

As I've mentioned in other threads, I have two sites, one was hit badly the other not at all and they are very similar. So why did
Penguin choose one and not the other? Have all of your sites been hit? I think it could be important to try to figure out the reasons
why some are and some aren't.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

@ of mine where hit badly and the other two either not at all or very little

[ozsubasi]

My second site has much less content and fewer links, and I haven't really done anything with it this year. Most of the links were placed in November 2011, when it was launched, and most of them are from sites I was already linked from to my main site.
My competitors who don't seem to have been hit have done little (if anything) to their sites in the last year. It seems crazy but I'm wondering whether it was activity levels that set things off.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

No cause the site I link to the most was hit very little if any at all

[ozsubasi]

It must be one helluva complicated pattern that caused it then. For everything I think of that differentiates my sites from each other, someone has a site that was/wasn't hit that disproves it as a factor. There are many people with more than one site who must be in this situation, it seems amazing that no-one as yet has been able to identify what the pattern is. I have seen articles with research done on multiple sites, but when I view the results I can't apply them to my situation.
The alternative to a pattern is that it was random, but that can't be the case because it is a mathematical formula. Unless of course it was only applied to certain sites, but that does not seem credible. I could really use some inspiration from somewhere

[TrophyHomes]

Only google really knows but I can tell you that if you were spamming links are are highly likely to be hit.

[ozsubasi]

Only google really knows but I can tell you that if you were spamming links are are highly likely to be hit.

Google made it clear in their announcement following the launch of Penguin that it was targeting web spam so it would be no surprise to anyone who was spamming links that they would be likely hit by it. But what I am trying to look at is why some sites were hit and others not when they don't seem to be doing things differently. I don't think Google does know the answer, or they wouldn't have provided a feedback form for those sites which felt they had been unfairly hit, or later stated that they were pleased with the over all effect of Penguin while admitting that no algorithm was perfect.