Ever since the new real time Penguin algorithm was released by Google, there has been speculation that Penguin was either a machine learning algorithm or had a machine learning component to it.  And if it was machine learning, would it be a supervised one or an unsupervised one.

I asked Gary Illyes from Google, whether Penguin was a machine learning algo or not, and he responded that it was not.

He also confirmed that it doesn’t use any type of supervised or unsupervised learning as part of the algo.

People began speculating about machine learning being part of Penguin after Google launched the new real time Penguin last month.  Rand Fishkin also did a Whiteboard Friday which started even more people talking about it.

Ever since Google began using RankBrain as part of the search algorithm, which is a machine learning algo, many have wondered what other aspects of the algo could be turned over to machine learning – or might already be using it. But as far as Penguin goes, it does not join RankBrain as a machine learning algo.