Tag: SEO

If you think that Google releases updates and introduces changes to its search algorithm just once in a while, you are entirely wrong.

These changes are introduced every now and then. However, sometimes they are so minor that they do not wreak havoc in the SERPs.

The quality of the search results that we have today is nowhere near the average quality we used to have a few decades ago. As you will see in the SEO Tribunal’s infographic below, Google introduced lots of major updates to establish itself on the market as the best and most used search engine.

Let’s have a look at some of the major Search updates that were released over the years. 

The Beginning

Google started off back in 1998 by two Stanford University graduates – Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It made use of a mathematical algorithm to arrange web pages. The algorithm was mostly based on the strength of inbound links and meta content. 

2003

Florida update was released, one of the first significant updates to its search algorithm. Keyword stuffing could no longer be used, and Google set an endpoint to eliminate spam content.

Many businesses were affected through this update, and some even disappeared from the search results.

2004

By 2004, the search engine had started using a range of unrevealed factors to improve its search ratings.

2005

In 2005, Google released XML sitemaps update that allowed website owners to submit the pages they would like to have indexed in the Google’s web index.

Google also released the personalized search update, thus collecting user’s data to make the search results more customized. 

2007

The Universal Search update was released which was showing news, videos, and images. It was at that time that New York Times reported that Google makes use of more than 200 different factors to rank websites. 

2010

In 2010, Google launched the Caffeine update which included real-time updates on the content thereby including the latest results on the provided query.

This also included Twitter feeds, Google news, and freshly indexed content. This was later updated to include other social media content as well. 

2011

In 2011, another important update was released, named Panda. The update was aimed against websites which were duplicating content from other sites, exploiting ad-sense, and content farms.

Google also launched Google+ during this year and garnered 10 million users within two weeks. 

2013

The Hummingbird update was launched in 2013 which caused another major change in the manner in which websites were listed and ranked. 

2018

Forward to 2018, Broad Core Algorithm Update was rolled out that was meant to ‘benefit pages that were previously unrewarded,’ as explained by Google. 

With Google working hard to improve its search results, we can sure expect to get even better and more relevant results to our queries in the nearest future.

To find out more about this and other fresh SEO facts and stats, check out the infographic below.

Infographic URL:  https://seotribunal.com/blog/stats-to-understand-seo/

Algorithm Penguin 4.0: All you need to know about the cute sounding master Algorithm by Google.

So Google Penguin is an algorithm that’s been with us for a few years now, designed tocombat link spam specifically and to make internet more users friendly, relevant and qualitative. After years of saying this was coming, Algorithm Penguin 4.0 was finally rolled out on Friday, September 23^rd It is now real-time in Google’s algorithm, Google’s core algorithm, which means that it’s constantly updating.

Impact of Penguin in the past :

• Penguin 1.0 was launched on 24^th April, 2012 and impacted 3.1% of websites. Aiming on curbing “Web spam” like keyword stuffing, cloaking, link schemes, or purposeful duplication of the content.

• Penguin 1.1 came on 26th May, 2012. This update was specially made for those who were hit severely as many already started questioning whether it made the results worse. However, sites that think they have been mistakenly penalized were allowed a web form to inform the same to Google. Simultaneously, the Penguin 1.1 update was released and called to be a “date refresh” process that impacted less than 1.1% of English language websites.
• Penguin 1.2 was released on 5^th October, 2012. Which had an impact on 0.3% of all the queries.
• Penguin 2.0 was released on 22^nd May, 2013. Penguin 2.0 was considered to be a new algorithm to curb bad linking and spam. More than 2.3% of search queries were affected by this update.
• Penguin 2.1 was released on 4^th October, 2013. This fifth installment if Penguin Algorithm was an improvement to the second generation spam filtering tech was also a relatively minor change affecting less than 1%.
• Penguin 3.0 was released on 17^th October, 2014 impacting 1% of the results. This update specifically targeted sites that still were violating Google’s linking policies.

• Penguin 4.0 :
  • As we stated earlier, Algorithm Penguin 4.0 is designed tocombat link spam specifically and to make internet more users friendly, relevant and qualitative.
  • The list of sites affected by Penguin was only periodically refreshed at the same time.
  • According to Google… “Once a webmaster considerably improved their site and its presence on the internet, many of Google’s algorithms would take that into consideration very fast, but others, like Penguin, needed to be refreshed.” But now, Penguin data is refreshed in real time, so any changes will be made as soon as the affected page has been re-crawled and re-indexed.
  • Google also states that it not going to comment on future refreshes.
  • Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.
  • So any penalties will be delivered to a specific page rather than an entire domain, which seems much fairer in the long run.
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