Google Algorithm Updates

 Google Algorithm Updates-All you need to know!

Google has taken over the internet as one of the most prominent search engines in such a way that other search engines can't even keep up with it. This was not a sudden change at all. From the beginning, google had the idea and determination to become the best in the world. This was evident from the beginning itself. The founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were determined to prove that the higher the number of backlinks to a website, the higher its probability to rank high in the SERPs.
From the beginning to now google had made numerous updates to its underlying algorithm which it uses to produce search results

Google always had users as their priority and was keen on keeping their users satisfied. Keeping users satisfied means giving relevant search results and ranking websites with high quality. For this google had to make constant and frequent updates to its algorithms.

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What are Google algorithms?

Google algorithms can be described as a complex system or set of rules which google uses to retrieve data from analyzed and indexed webpages and websites and instantly provide results that are best relevant to the search query. This is done using numerous combinations of algorithms and ranking factors.

 

From earlier days onwards google had made several if not hundreds of updates to its search algorithm, Google now makes thousands of updates every year. Most of these changes or updates are so small that they aren’t even noticed by any webmasters, However, occasionally Google rolls out some major updates to its algorithm that significantly impact Search engine results page ranking.

Here are some of the major Google Algorithm Updates!

Google Panda Update

Google panda update also known as the Farmer update was one of the most important algorithm updates rolled out by Google.Google initially rolled out the Panda update on Feb23,2011 This was designed to decrease the ranking of low-quality or thin content websites in SERP and reward websites having high-quality relevant content. In short, we can say that the Panda update was made to reduce or stop content spamming

Content Spamming includes

•  Plagiarized content or Duplicate content
•  Low-Quality content
•  Automated Content
•  Content Spinning
•  Keyword stuffing
•  Content farming

After the initial launch Panda algorithm had several updates (28 or more). Among those updates, Panda 4.0 was the most important. Panda 4. was included as a real-time filter in the existing google search algorithm. Panda update urged webmasters to create quality content to get better page rank, thus content rich websites started getting better ranks in SERP, and hence the quality SERP provided also increased 

Google Penguin Update

Google penguin update or Web spam algorithm update is one of the major updates in the algorithm after the panda update. It was launched on the 24^th of April 2012. This update was targeted specifically at link spam and unethical way of link-building practices. Before the penguin algorithm, the number of links in a website was considered a factor in webpage score while crawling, indexing and ranking, and hence low-quality websites began to rank higher in SERP. The penguin was Google’s answer to link building or link spamming activities through black hat methods.

 

Link spamming Includes

• Link Cultivation
• Paid links
• Link exchange
• Comment spamming
• Over optimized anchor texts

Similar to Panda updates penguin also had several updates. The penguin update 4.0 was the most important among them as this update was made part of Google’s core search algorithm. This made it easy to find out link spamming activities and improved SERP results 

Google Humming Bird Update

The Google Humming Bird update was launched in August 2013 and has been described by google as one of its major updates on its search algorithm. The algorithm made the search engine interpret the search query in a better way than the existing one. Instead of searching for individual words within the search query, Google started understanding the intent of the query and contents within the web pages and provided the best possible results related to the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords were displayed.

Fun Fact: Despite the scale of this update, the Humming word update was subtle enough to be left unnoticed

Google Pigeon Update

Google’s pigeon update was one algorithm update that made a huge impact on the search results for the sake of local search results and the local business especially benefitted from the update in their web analytics. The main aim of this update was to increase local searches and to improve Google’s ability to calculate a local business's distance and location to be favorable for businesses closest to the physical location of the user.

Criterias to improve Local SEO

• To improve visibility, the website should be place-marked on Google Maps.
• The website should submit the details in their Google my business account.
• The website should contain all details about their location and contact details.
• Contact details should be embedded in the local directories like Just dial, Ask dial, etc

Mobilegeddon Update

Mobilegeddon or mobile-friendly update launched in April 2015, and was the first of the Google algorithm updates which were to ensure mobile-friendly and responsive websites got a boost on smartphone search results. initially, it was focused only on the mobile search result, now it affects website ranking on all devices.

This update

• Impacted only mobile search results ranking.
• The Mobilegeddon algorithm evaluated webpage one by one.
• Affected search results in all languages worldwide.

The whole ranking was affected by this update. Only mobile-friendly websites began to rank higher in mobile search results and webmasters were forced to make mobile-friendly websites to rank higher in SERPS.

Medic Update

Google rolled out the Medic update on 1^st week of august 2018 and it was a broad core algorithm update mainly affecting the fields of medical and health, legal, financial, and YMYL(your Money Your Life(site that can impact your current or future well beings such as finances health safety) websites. The main purpose of this algorithm update was to emphasize and improve the expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T)of website pages that have the power to affect a person well being.

The factors negatively affecting the rankings of websites due to this update are

• If a site is selling a product that could compromise safety
• Have negative reputation
• Lack of positive reputation compared to competitors
• Negative reviews
• Lack of authority in the field

Here are some suggestions that could improve the E-A-T of your website

• Maintain high-quality content
• Updating content and website regularly
• Creating author profiles of people writing content

 

Rank Brain Update

Google released its Rank brain update on 26^th October 2015. Rank Brain update was considered a revolution in search engine algorithm updates. In a way, we could say that Rank Brain is a part of or even better upgrade of Google’s Humming Bird update. This update was considered a revolution as it introduced machine learning to understand user intent of user queries and to  deliver better, relevant SERP results for ensured better user experience

Google BERT Update

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) was introduced as a natural language processing (PLN) algorithm. After this update, google began to understand queries in local and natural languages by discerning the context of the words of the query, and using its machine learning google gave users better and relevant results and improved user experience by providing better accuracy.

After this update, google could understand

• The search intent of users
• The contents of the indexed pages

Parked Domain Google Update

Before launching this update the search engines were filled with parked domains. parked domains are domains bought by users for future use but are not yet hosted. Before this update, google showed these parked domains in its SERP results. Users find it annoying or irrelevant to their query as the domain didn’t host any websites. Through this update, google removed the parked domains from appearing in SERPs and showed only websites relevant to the query

Google Pirate Update

Piracy was a long-existing problem for google from its beginning, piracy means a website posting or publishing pirated content.DMCA issued that it was a criminal offense to publish stolen or pirated content or media of any kind. Since piracy was a widespread issue at the time Google decided to upgrade its algorithm to monitor sites for pirated content. If Google finds out a website is publishing piracy content and had multiple copyright infringements reported against you, the site not only gets downranked but you will be fined or even may get removed from the SERP results page. In 2014 software piracy was included to be monitored by this algorithm.

FRED Google algorithm update

Fred update was in a way an adjustment to Google’s search ranking algorithm launched in march 7,2017. It was rolled out to sort out remove what google perceived as low-quality results, Sites that used aggressive ad placements with thin or irrelevant content. The majority of the affected pages were affiliate sites.

The affected pages

• Had too many ads
• Had thin content
• Had Poor link quality
•  Had Poor content
• Overwhelming interstitials
• Disproportionate Content to supplement content ratio
• Deceptive ads
• Aggressive affiliate linking

 

EMD Google Update

The Exact Match Domain as the name suggests was targeted on ‘Exact match domain ' names.  The intent of this update was not to target the exact matched domains but to target the sites which had 'exact matched domain' names and had a combination of spammy tactics and had poor link quality and thin content. The problem with exact match domain websites was that google ranked them higher when a user searched for that specific keyword even though the content was spammy or poor, knowing this many had made use of this loophole to rank their websites higher in SERPs ranking making the user experience low. After the update, this was rectified and the search results improved giving a better user experience.

The Bracket update

The bracket update was one of Google’s core algorithm updates. The update was meant to rank websites with quality content to rank higher in the search results. Google’s bracket update was rolled out on march 7, 2018. The algorithm was designed to prioritize sites with high-quality content and this update demoted and penalized websites lacking in this area. As a result, all webmasters were forced to make high-quality contents to rank their websites higher. It made sure the SERP results provided a good user experience.

Possum Update

Google launched the possum update on September 1,2016. This was a local algorithm update. It was mainly aimed at local businesses. It only impacted ranking in the 3-pack and Local Finder(The local results or google map results). The main purpose of this update was to diversify the local results and also to prevent spam from ranking as well

The new algorithm specifics include

• The physical location of the searcher is more important than it was earlier.
• Google is now filtering based on affiliation and address.
• Businesses that fall outside of a physical city limit saw a huge spike in their ranking than before.
• Search results vary more based on a slight variation of the keyword searched for.
• The local filter seems to be running more independently from the organic filter