2019

Important Google Algorithm Updates You Should Know About!

Almost every day, new business is making its way up to the top spot on the Google search engine. To provide the best user experience, Google is constantly working on to give its users the satisfactory results. Google algorithm updates are the main key to understand how to be among the top Google’s choice on the particular search query.

Here are some important Google algorithm updates you should know about:

Important Google Algorithm Updates

  • Mobile-First Indexing Algorithm

Mobile-first indexing was rolled on the 28th of March, 2018. The purpose of this algorithm is the indexing of web pages will be done on the mobile user experience of the site and Google will crawl and index accordingly to that experience.

This indicates that Google will give priority to the mobile version of the website for ranking over desktop version.

Why Google switch over to mobile-first indexing?

There are currently more mobile searchers than desktop searchers. 7 out of every 10 searches are performed using a mobile phone.

Moreover, a user performing a search is not restricted to time and place, but is free to look for anything online on Google from anywhere and whenever the need is aroused.

As an SEO expert, I would suggest that you choose a responsive website design as this is the most important factor. A website design should be as such that every element of the website is easily accessible and clickable for mobile users. Your website should take less time to load and add different graphics.

  • Broad Core Algorithm

The first Broad Core algorithm was announced on August 1st, 2018 by Google.

Here is an official statement of the release of this update:

The upgrade’s focal point is the search results and will center on the results quality by giving the most ideal and applicable outcomes for the clients.

Broad core algorithm will see what sites have a quality content and most relevant content and will accordingly position the sites on search results on search engine. Since it is concentrating on to giving the best search results to the user against what they seek.

The new release affected many medical and health sites.

If you happened to see a sudden drop or gain in rankings of your website, I would suggest that instead of worrying, you should check your website content.  Google has clarified that on the off chance that you do see a drop in your rankings, this isn’t something to freeze about.

Google released this update to give each site with good content and quality website, a chance to rank better.

The best course of action is to keep on creating valuable, relevant and engaging web content.

If you don’t already have a professional website content writer then I would suggest you hire one to make sure your website is staying in the top position on Google.

  • Pigeon Algorithm

The Google Pigeon update was released on July 24th, 2014. This local search update affected several businesses that specially cater to local customers. The Google Pigeon Update was rolled out to provide more accurate and relevant search results to customers.

This impacted the rankings of the local organic searches, gain or loss of referrals and leads of businesses.

In my previous article “Benefits of SEO for Small Business”, I’ve emphasized on the small business owner to grow their business locally as more than 60 percent of customers are more likely to buy from a local business.

Every day, Google typically discharges at least one change intended to enhance SERP. Local Business has gain more from this change provided they already have updated Google profiles and reviews.

This should be enough to tell you that if you’re planning to start a business, your online presence should be locally optimized to achieve the great advantage of this update.

  • Panda Algorithm

Panda Update went live on February 11th, 2011 and completely dazed up everybody after its release. A Large number of best rankings sites was replaced by new sites in a matter of hours.

The thought behind Panda was to wipe out the negative user experience lowering the rank of sites, which uses non-favorable methods (black hat) to rank on SERP, and displaying sites with quality content, good backlinks, unique content and relevant content which can be useful to a visitor.

Google has been releasing various variants of Panda since 2011. Panda basically targets sites that have duplicate content, low-quality content, short content, broken pages, and keywords stuffing.

With a dominant part of the SEO methodology being content driven, being aware of Panda will keep on being the best SEO need.

  • Penguin Algorithm

Penguin was introduced to the digital world in 2012. Google Penguin update aimed to track links made to your site and used by your website. Links that are bought and paid for, link to your website from bad quality sites, links from low-quality and irrelevant sources.

Penguin update version 1.0 checked the sites with unnatural or black hat backlinks and overly-optimized anchor text.

Later on, Google released various versions of Penguin with little to no change to the algorithm as they were simply the refresh. Though, many websites which were initially affected by the release of Penguin, noticed the improvement in rank after doing some cleansing of backlinks while the shady sites dropped down several spots in SERP.

Penguin update 3.0 got many sites penalized as the traces of black hat techniques were found on the site. It also gave the opportunity to webmasters which have dumped all the bad links to recuperate.

Penguin 4.0 is said to be the lenient as compared to previous versions of Penguin. The greatest change with the arrival of Penguin 4.0 was that Google made this center of core algorithm.

It was with this update Penguin began to discredit backlinks themselves. That implies that instead of penalizing websites Google basically didn’t compensate them with anything positive.

So if you’ve been the victim of Penguin, you should evaluate your backlinks. Focus on adding valuable and shareable quality content on your website; vary your anchor text instead of just anchoring keywords you want to rank on.

  • Payday Loan Algorithm

Payday loanGoogle algorithm was announced on June 11, 2013. The updated targeted the spam queries like payday loans. Other niche industries like casinos and financial areas have also been affected by this.

Version 2.0 of Payday load targeted the “spammy sites” with a large number of spam backlinks and other spam techniques.

  • Pirate Algorithm

DMCA Penalty (“Pirate”) was launched on August in 2012 against the sites with pirated content on them. This algorithm took action against the sites which received number DMCAs requests for copyright piracy.

You can ready about what said about this update here.

After this was released many sites like 4shared took a toll and were penalized. Torrent sites which hosted a large number of pirated content also become the target.

  • Humming Bird

Hummingbird was announced on 26th of September but was rolled out in August 2013.

Hummingbird was announced to enable Google to more readily comprehend user queries and provide the most relevant results what Google deems to be more accurate and relevant.

According to user-intent update, content which actually holds the answer to the searched query will be favored by Google. Hummingbird focuses on the actual meaning behind each word and displayed the result accordingly.

This concludes our article on a note that SEO is constantly evolving, you should stay aware of the changes Google makes in these page-ranking algorithms.

Fight the giants in your niche with well-prepared SEO strategies.

Sadia Khan

I am a digital marketer who believes that the right content promoted on the right platform at the right time is the key to success. I help businesses to promote and sell their products and services to customers via the organic medium. My expertise is to create a brand reputation in the market using various content marketing strategies. My goal in life is to provide value and not just sell the product. I am a strategic planner, a critical thinker, and a project manager who knows how to communicate and collaborate successfully.

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