With the few sites, I have that gets traffic from google search results, the difference has been minimal, so no major problem for me
I'm glad you have, I have seen a lot of poor results. Try searching for "new shoes" or "bicycle wheels" in google.com... Good results? I think not.
Google at the moment has a very complicated set-up, I wish they go back to what they where 4-5 years ago with a much more simple algorythem.
Taking it into context of monthly searches (12,100) it's not that much. In reality, people are more likely to be search more specific keywords for shoes (and they have a lot more higher volume searches). It's perfectly reasonable that some of these searches are for the song, so it's a relevant result. The odd inclusion is the marketing course. What's so bad about the bicycle wheels results? I didn't look at every page, but they all seemed to be relevant.
I do not believe that the Penguin Update had a darn thing to do with making Google’s search results better (Google has a Panda for that). The more I poke around and see how some query spaces have changed, or see the current results when *I* do searches on Google, the more it’s clear that the Google search results are NOT better after Penguin – they’re worse. Read more: http://www.zmili.com/ Anchor text "bookmark"
Lots of complaints listed above. I haven't seen any changes. I'm curious just how many of the complainers' websites are filled with rich, original content that adds something to the world wide web, rather than just "more of the same" trying to grab a piece of the internet's money flow.
For those SEO, I'm sure they Penguin. Because it gives another way of challenge on how target the right way of ranking with this Penguin.
For a query which I monitor: Before -- #1 was a very reputable (PR9) online store (when you're looking for a commercial product -- it's natural to show you a shop where you can buy it, I think). After -- #1 is a Facebook page (and looks a good bit scammy). I'm not sure that facebook pages are a good example of "genuine original content and blah-blah-blah". But the page has exact keyword in its url, anyway...