Google Algorithm Updates (2012-2017)
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The document outlines various Google algorithm updates aimed at improving search results quality, focusing on penalizing low-quality and spammy sites while promoting mobile-friendly and locally relevant content. Notable updates include Google Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, and Hummingbird, each targeting specific SEO practices and user experience enhancements. The future of Google's algorithms suggests ongoing emphasis on quality content, user intent, and mobile responsiveness, with regular updates becoming part of a core algorithm.
Google Algorithm Updates (2012-2017)
- 5. ALGORITHM UPDATES • Google Panda : • Ranking algorithm Update by Google that was first released in Feb 2011. • Specifically works to rank quality websites in the top. • Upon its launch till date, around 12% websites have been affected by its update in some cases the websites with original content were having a lower rank than websites with copied content. • 4.2 was the last update for Google Panda. • Google Penguin: • Algorithm update from Google that works on decreasing ranks of websites that violate Google webmasters guidelines by aggressively using Black-hat SEO techniques to increase their rankings artificially. • The main target of Penguin is to identify spam links. • The last update was made in Sept 2016 and Google included Penguin as a core algorithm, that means it updates itself in real time hence no further announcements by Google on updates. • Penguin 4.0 was the last known update.
- 6. • Google Pigeon: • The update was rolled out targeting local listings in SERP. • The changes affected search results in Google Maps along with regular Google results. • Using knowledge graph, spelling correction & synonyms, Google gives more priority to local Businesses within the physical limits of the city. • Google Possum: • Another update targeted towards local listings, but the entire SEO community didn’t react that much as Possum was more targeted towards Map results in SERP. • Google Humming Bird: • The update was based on semantic search where Google focussed on synonyms for what users were searching for. • Humming Bird was aimed to bridge the gaps between what people are searching for & the search results that they are shown. • Semantic Search: In Simple words semantic search can be defined as understanding the searcher’s intent & the contextual meaning of terms in the search data base & put the best results forward for the users. ALGORITHM UPDATES
- 7. • Fold Line: The line that separates the organic results & paid results in a SERP. In the picture we can see the top 4 being the paid ads & below showing Map results. • Flux: It refers to the re- distribution of website rankings in search engine that occurs before any algorithm update in Search engines. • Temperature Spike: It’s a MOZ cast weather report showing turbulence in Google algorithm for the previous day. • Exact Match Domain: Google started to devalue websites, without any quality content, which simply ranked better because of having keywords that match search terms in their domain names. ALGORITHM UPDATES
- 9. 2012 UPDATE January Updates • Updates on image search, lading page quality detection, relevant site links, rich snippets & related query improvements. • Update on personalisation aggressive pus for Google + social media & user profiles into SERPs. • Google Panda update to 3.2 but announced no major change in search engine algorithm. • Update to devalue the website with too much ad space above the Fold line. February Updates • Updates regarding quality highlights related to speed, freshness & spell checking. • Google Panda 3.3 launched with minor updates. • Update with code name “Venice” was rolled out to aggressively localise organic results & integration of local search data.
- 10. 2012 UPDATE March Updates • Google Panda 3.4 was launched and according to estimates Panda 3.4 affected around 1.6% of the search results. • Major update with changes to anchor test scorings, image search & most importantly updates on queries with local intent. April Updates • Google Panda 3.5 update with minimal changes, however the effectiveness could not be measured. • Google Penguin was launched also called as “web spam update”. • Google penguin was rolled out to check a number of spam factors including keyword stuffing & impacted over 3.1 search queries in English. • Meanwhile another small Google panda update to 3.6 happened after a major update of Google penguin.
- 11. 2012 UPDATE May Updates • A major update happened with the rollout of “Knowledge Graph”, a SERP integrated display. • First minor update related to Google Penguin 1.1. • Google Penguin updates include changes to better link-scheme detection, changes to title snippet rewriting & a major update to Google news. June Updates • Google Panda updated to 3.7 and ranking fluctuation data showed this update did have a substantial effect on search queries. • Yet another Google Panda update to 3.8 with very minimal changes • Google sent out a large number of un natural link warnings via webmaster tools, but stated they do not represent a serious problem to SEOs. July Updates • Google Panda update to 3.9, resulted in ranking query fluctuation & according to google ~ 1% queries were affected.
- 12. 2012 UPDATE August Updates • The recent update was done to start penalizing websites with frequent copyright violations. • A significant change to the SERP, where Google limited to 7 results unlike 10, & this according to sources affected a lot of keyword performance. • Yet another Google Panda update & like every time, it was a minimal change & named it Google Panda 3.9.1. September Updates • Google Panda update 3.9.2 was released with updates on data only & a very minimal change to ranking flux. • A large scale update to exact match domains was rolled out. Many large scale devaluation happened & google top ranked those sites with regularly updated quality content. • 20th overall updated to Google Panda was rolled out, a combination of algorithm + data changes happened. October Updates • Google announced a major Google Penguin update and made some minor Penguin data update before the major one. • Google again went back to its original page layout algorithm which was changed in January, which targeted with too much ad space above the fold.
- 13. 2012 UPDATE November Updates • Google rolled out 21st Google Panda update & according to experts affected around 1.1% of search queries. • Data only 22nd update to Google Panda was rolled out. December Updates • Knowledge graph functionality was added to non-English queries. • Google Panda 23 was rolled out with slightly higher impact than 1.3 queries.
- 14. 2013 UPDATE January Updates • Google announced 1st update of 2013 and later confirmed that the update affected around 1.3% of search queries. March Updates • Google sources confirmed last Google Panda update will be rolled out soon before Panda is integrated into a Core algorithm. May Updates • Major updates were reported based on algorithms & many major websites also reported loss of traffic during this time. . • Update to control domain crowding deep in the SERPs was announced & tentatively will be rolled out along with Google Penguin 2.0. • Google Penguin 2.0 was updated in late May, targeted to the page level & the impact was not that big.
- 15. 2013 UPDATEJune Updates • A well targeted algorithm update to take on a niche of spam results mostly targeted towards controlling spam ads & porn. • Traffic of several websites were affected, as google made some unannounced minimal changes in algorithm. July Updates • Announced Google Panda update and Google made some relaxations on previous laid out penalties for websites. August Updates • In depth articles was added to news results dedicated to more evergreen long form content. • Rolled out Google Hummingbird update which was compared to caffeine. Targeted changes to semantic search & knowledge graph. October Updates • Google Penguin update with major change in the data centre, 2.1 had a moderate effect but some webmasters experienced problems.
- 16. 2013 UPDATE November Updates • Widespread DNS errors happened worldwide but no major update was announced from Google. December Updates • No major updates were announced & almost all global flux trackers registered historically high activity.
- 17. 2014 UPDATE February Updates • Update regarding the page layout algorithm previously known as “top heavy”. Originally launched in Jan 2012 to penalise websites with too much ad space above the fold line. March Updates • Many websites reported ranking changes but no major update was announced from google, although speculations were there that a minor update of Google Panda had arrived. May Updates • Just before Google Panda, Google updated algorithm targeting spam queries. • Google Panda 4.0 was confirmed by Google for both data & algorithms. About 7% of English search queries were affected. June Updates • Google Payday 3.0 was updated which targeted many spam websites, unlike Payday 2.0 which was made for specific websites. • A Major update was announced in Google +, where it planned to drop all authorship photos from SERPs.
- 18. 2014 UPDATE July Updates • A major update in the form of Google Pigeon was rolled out which shook the SEO community. • The update dramatically altered local results & local location cues. • Local listings got a boost in this update August Updates • Authorship photos from Google + were removed with permanent action on the process. • Google Panda 4.1 was updated with algorithmic component & affected around 4% search queries then. October Updates • Google Penguin 3.0 update was rolled out with minor changes to data sets only. According to sources the update affected around 1.5% of English search queries. • Next update was to counter software & Digital Media piracy. December Updates • According to Google, Penguin from now on will be updated like Google Panda, frequent small updates rather than major updates. • Google Pigeon was now extended to European countries along with Canada & Australia, originally launched only in USA
- 19. 2015 UPDATE February Updates • E-commerce focused updates were expected from Google , although not officially confirmed by Google but webmasters started to report major flux in Google. April Updates • Pitching for more mobile devices and pushing for android apps, Google started rewarding mobile friendly sites with Better rankings & the update really helped the Businesses & customers also. May Updates • A core algorithm update was made by Google where many quality changes were done for SERPs results. The core algorithm update was names “Phantom 2”. July Updates • Google Panda 4.2 was announced by Google but any major impact of the update could have was un clear.
- 20. 2015 UPDATE October Update • A major announcement was made by Google revealing that machine learning had been a part of the algorithm for months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor.
- 21. 2016 UPDATE January Updates • Rank of many websites was affected and people anticipated that a major algorithm update has taken place from Google, but the tech giant didn’t confirm any update from its side. February Updates • A major change happened keeping digital marketers around the world interested, Google removed right column ads completely & replaced it with top 4 ads before the fold line. • The update had significant effect on CTR of both paid & organic search results especially while bidding on competitive keywords. May Updates • Google yet again made some changes in its ranking algorithm, which significantly benefitted websites that were mobile friendly & specifically with good quality score when the websites choose for paid promotion using Google Ad words.
- 22. 2016 UPDATE September Updates • Google Possum update as called by the SEO community, this update affected local results and prevented spams from getting ranked in SERP. • This update was made by Google giving more priority to quality local results, although not a good news for Businesses lying outside physical city limits. • Search community saw a decline in the image search in SERPs & the reason could not be traced as Google denied making any significant changes. • Google Penguin 4.0 was launched and a significant number of websites were affected. • The updates de-valued spam sites & more attention was given for quality content for users. October Updates • There was again a rise in spike temperature but no news of any updates from Google.
- 23. 2016 UPDATE November Updates • A update was made by Google which did affect a lot of websites ranking on SERPs. • The update was targeted towards indexing mobile friendly sites in a different way, many industry experts felt that the tech giant will now deal differently with desktop only sites and mobile friendly sites. December Updates • Although not confirmed by Google, but webmaster reports & SEO community saw a huge drop in rankings of many websites in SERPs.
- 24. 2017 UPDATE January Updates • Pushing more for mobile friendliness, Google started penalising websites with aggressive Pop-ups from websites that could damage user experience in Mobile. • Although a lot of temperature spike was expected, but very few sites were affected as the android revolution had urged many websites to turn mobile- responsiveness. February Updates • Unconfirmed Google update was made which saw a period of heavy algorithm flux. • The update did affect organic ranking of many sites. March Updates • The major update by Google was in March 2017. • According to SEO community, though the update has not been confirmed by Google but it had a significant effect on a number of sites. • Experts called this update as a spam link detection and was rolled out to detect spam sites in SERP and increase user experience in the SERP. • The update has been named as FRED by the SEO community.
- 25. A Forecast for the Future. • The updates from 2012 till date show that the main aim of the updates from the tech giant is to have quality content in its SERPs. • Penalizing websites copying content, so that users can get more unique & different content from their search results. • The Android revolution is the major reason for Google improving user’s experience in different devices other than desktop. • SEO community & Digital marketers can expect a further push for more responsiveness in mobile & tablets for websites. • Moreover Google always believes in showing quality content & spam free links to its users, so the updates on quality basis will be continuous. • As Google gives space for others to advertise and get listed on its SERPs, any bad experience by the user will also hampers Google’s reputation as a search engine, therefore Google gives so much of priority to quality. • Websites with paid promotions can now expect mobile responsiveness & quality content to be given more priority in future updates of Google.
- 26. SUMMARY • Google pushing more mobile friendly sites. • Priority is given to sites with unique content & spam free sites. • In a major rollout, Google now concentrating on giving more opportunities to local businesses within the physical limits of a city. • In future all major updates may not be separately announced by Google, rather the algorithms are being included in the core algorithm so regular updates will happen as & how Google wants. • To keep SERP more quality & give users more specific results, Google will de rank sites which are not using specific keywords to their content. • The road towards quality shall make the job easier for paid promotions as more specific content will be able to get a better quality score.