Google is not the first search engine, but since 1998 after the launch of Google, it is the only search engine that the user likes the most. The popularity of google is because of the accurate search result they provide to the user by the pagerank algorithm that they have come with.
The aim of google is to provide the most valuable content out there in the internet, to the user in a single go. For that reason google frequently updates its algorithm several times in a year. And here we will discuss the most important algorithm updates that bring drastic change in seo which play a major role till date.
Why does Google need to update its algorithm?
The big reason for the acceptance of Google worldwide is because of the precise result to the searcher query. But there are many sites out there who provide spammy, auto generated, etc types of content which are not user friendly. In order to remove these useless web content google constantly updates its algorithm.
Major algorithm updates
Google made its first major algorithm update before christmas of 2003 known as the Florida update. Florida is used to calculate the links which are low quality and mark those websites rank low. This caused many sites to lose their rank over single go. Google has never revealed the details about the Florida Algorithm.
In the year 2008 Google came up with another update called Vince. This update brings the big brands rank higher compared to the local small brands. Because the Big Brands are more trustworthy.
Google and the site owner were facing a big issue in the searchability. In order to tackle that, Google brings out Caffeine. Here it improves the speed of indexing the web page.
All these updates do not make a big impact in seo. The upcoming updates changes make a 360 degrees turn in seo practices. Let’s discuss those in details
Google panda algorithm update
Most people think that “Panda” was named after the animal. But it was named after a googliate Navneet Panda.
The google panda algorithm update targets sites that produce a huge number of low quality content (content farm). Here google first time, penalise those sites which are stuffing keywords in the content.
This update was placed in the year 2011 but fully integrated in the google algorithm by 2016. The result is loss of organic traffic in those websites which are producing thin, low quality content. And ranked the high quality original content producer.
Google penguin algorithm update
In 24 april 2012 google announced an update which is an extension to panda update formerly known as webspam algorithm update and later renamed as penguin update.
The main objective of Google is to remove unusual links which are generated by black hat techniques. These techniques include buying the links from link farms and Private Blogging Networks (PBNs).
Just like the Panda, the Penguin update became a part of google in 2016.
What is hummingbird update
Most of the users are searching for complex terms in the search engine and to tackle this Google introduced Knowledge graph. With the introduction of knowledge graph, switch its method of interpreting the keywords into understanding the user search intent by focusing on semantics. The knowledge graph makes the search engine more intelligent which helps to provide the user more about the celebrities, famous places, sports stars and much more relevant search query.
The knowledge graph uses natural language processing technique which generally focuses on latent semantic indexing.
According to Amit Singhal, former Google Engineer, this knowledge graph helped Google to provide the complex search term easily to the user. And result in algorithm update HummingBird.
Google mobile algorithm update
In the 1990’s and early 2000 when most of the search engines were born, there was nothing called a mobile. As the year passed by in 2015 for the first time the smartphone user overtook the desktop user.
As a result Google finds a need to upgrade itself to make itself mobile friendly. So, in 2015 Google itself launched an update called mobilegeddon or the mobile friendly algorithm.
In july of 2019 Google made mobile friendly mandatory by saying it will devalue those websites which are not mobile friendly and established the importance of mobile friendly websites by introducing mobile first indexing.
RankBrain update
In 2015 google made another algorithm update after introducing the mobile friendly ranking called the RankBrain. RankBrain is an extension of HummingBird update where it uses machine learning to better understand the user search intent.
This update makes Google understand the user on a personal level. This advancement in the technology makes the SEO professional work a bit tricker to understand the search intent.
Google Medic update
In the year 2018, Google made something that affected a lot of websites and penalised and lowered their ranking drastically. This update is called the medic update.
In this update Google brought certain guidelines and aims to penalise the YMYL (your money or your life) websites. YMYL are those websites which are likely to affect users’ money or life.
The websites which don’t have any Expertise, Authority and Trust Signals are fallen into this category.
BERT update
In october 2019 Google brought an extension to RankBrain and HummingBird update called the BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformer).
This update makes Google understand the quality of the content. The result is that it will rank those websites which have good written articles which provide meaningful value.
Core Updates
Everyday Google updates its algorithm. But the core updates are a slight change in the major updates. The main purpose of these updates is not to focus on some specific sites but to scan the entire web to reshuffle the ranking based on previous data.
We can understand the core updates by looking at the example in may 2020 google announced a core update where it reconsidered certain content or something related to YMYL website on the basis of EAT and reshuffled the ranking of the websites.
Conclusion
Since 1990 many search engines have evolved and many have died. But as long as search engines exist the word of SEO will always be there.