Google’s Algorithm Updates

Objectives

Clearly identify all of the major Google Algorithm Updates

Identify which Algorithm update a website may have been affected by

Identify how the algorithms affected the World Wide Web as a whole

At the end of this training, the participants should be able to:

What is an Algorithm

What is an ALGORITHMand what does it do?

Long or short topic title goes here

AlgorithmA set of instructions carried out by a program to accomplish a task.

Algorithm for the Common Man

1. Wait for Bus A route 1

2. Get on the bus

3. Find vacant seat

4. Sit

5. Pay fare

6. Remain seated until reaching Unloading Bay A1-ABC

6. Get off at Unloading Bay A1-ABC

7. Walk from the Unloading Bay to the gate

8. Turn left

9. Look for house #6

For example, someone calls you to ask for directionsfrom their bus stop.

An Algorithm can be compared to a set of instructions you give to someone to carry out a solution to a problem.

The Algorithm in this case would be like:

– Destination reached –

Algorithm for the Common Man

A more complex Algorithm is being used and continuously improved by Google to ensure that they deliver search results as accurately as possible.

How many can you name?

How many of theGoogle Updatescan you name?

Google Browser Toolbar Update

Google Dance

Major Google Algorithm Updates

Every year since, Google has been making updates to their algorithm. Their goal is to make sure that they return the most relevant search results possible, in the fastest way possible.

It’s said that Google makes 400 updates a year. That number amounts to a minimum of one update per day.

Major Google Algorithm Updates

Over the past 15 years, Google has released plenty of Algorithm updates that have affected the way search results appear.

While some of the updates released were subtle or quite unnoticeable, others hit hard and changed how a whole nation saw there SERP

Google Update February 2003 (Boston)

• Incoming links• Targeted phrases• Unique content

• Noticeable decrease in back links• Heavily cross-loaded linked sites penalized• Lower Page Rank of the same sites

EFFECT

TARGET

Google Update: April 2003 (Cassandra)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Hidden texts• Hidden links• Massive internal linking of co-owned sites

• Massive index update• Lesser spam

Google Update: May 2003 (Dominic)

• Back Links

• Cut-down on back linking • Change in link weighting • Drop in PageRank

EFFECT

TARGET

Google Update : June 2003 (Esmeralda)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Page content• Introduced Everflux

• Lesser spam• Up to date information

Google Update: November 2003 (Florida)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Keyword stuffing• Linking• Low-value SEO techniques

• Road block for Black Hat SEO techniques• Removal of fishy back links

Google Update: January 2004 (Austin)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Invisible texts• Meta elements• Keyword density

• Penalizing of suspicious sites• Banning of spam sites

Google Update: February 2004 (Brandy)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Anchor text relevance• Latent Semantic Indexing

• Authority sites picked up rank

Google Update: February 2005 (Allegra)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Suspicious looking links• Spam sites

• Drop in rankings for sites with low-quality link exchanges

Google Update: May 2005 (Bourbon)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Duplicate content• Non-canonical URLs

• Removal of 302 Pagejacking

Google Update: October 2005 (Jagger)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Low-quality links• Link farms• Paid links• Reciprocal links

• Cut down on irrelevant reciprocal linking

Google Update: February 2006 (Big Daddy)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Inbound links• Outbound links• Suspected spam sites

• Suspected spam sites placed under supplemental category• Some highly suspicious sites removed from the index

Google Update: August 2009 ( Caffeine)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Indexing

• Fresher search results• Sites that ranked previously were topped by newer results with more relevant content.

Google Update: February 2011 (Panda)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Content farms• Scraped content• Content depth

• Companies layoff workers• 11% of US websites are affected.

Google Update: April 2012 (Penguin)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Over optimization• Link buying• Keyword stuffing

• 3.1% of search queries

Google Update: Sept. 2013 (Hummingbird)

EFFECT

TARGET

• Improvement in semantic search

• Conversation recognition• Long tailed queries better understood• Caters to mobile users

Post-Update Effects

Who was affected?

Visibility Losses

94%

articlesbase.com

94%

suite101.com

93%

associatedcontent.com

93%

business.com

91%

essortment.com

Search Engine Rank Losses

79%

suite101.com

75%

associatedcontent.com

72%

buzzle.com

71%

ezinearticles.com

67%

hubpages.com

Chapter Summary

Understanding on algorithms

The major Google updates

Effects of Google updates on the web

In this chapter, we have learned the ff: