We kind of knew this that when Penguin went real time that it meant Google is done with numbered Penguin releases. Google' Gary Illyes confirmed the other day at State of Search that the Penguin algorithm is still on autopilot and runs in real time by itself.
Gary added that they have made "occasional tweaks" to the algorithm but overall the engineering team is happy with the late 2016 release of the Penguin update after the few tweaks they made.
Here are some tweets with this coverage from the conference:
Penguin is on auto pilot but when needed we add to it. @methode #stateofsearch
— Kevin Doory (@KevinDoory) October 10, 2017
The Google Team is happy with Penguin after the update in 2016. It is working as they wanted it to. @methode @jenstar #StateofSearch
— Jesse McDonald (@jesseseogeek) October 10, 2017
Penguin is now on autopilot and is only tweaked occasionally @methode #StateofSearch
— Mark Traphagen (@marktraphagen) October 10, 2017
Forum discussion at Twitter.