It is almost essential that every business has a website. It’s one of the quickest ways for potential customers to access your products and services. A huge chunk of your target audience uses the Google search engine to locate businesses or relevant online content.
What Google does is crawl through millions of web pages and display them by order of their relevance on SERPs. So, if your website is generating traffic from organic search, it simply means that Google considers your content relevant.
However, from time to time, it carries out Google algorithm updates (sometimes called core updates) to its programming, which could influence how web pages rank. If you’re unaware of these search engine algorithm updates, you may wonder why your website isn’t generating traffic as usual.
What does algorithm mean, and why is it essential to your website’s SEO? We explore everything right here.
What Is Google Algorithm?
Google algorithms are a set of rules or processes that the search engine uses to rank different websites on SERPs. When an organic search occurs, the Google algorithm goes to work, searching and retrieving results from millions of websites worldwide. As always, the results in the search algorithms are always marked by quality and relevancy.
Other factors include user experience, website authority, backlinks, keyword optimization, and freshness of the content. However, several unknown factors google algorithms consider before ranking web pages on search results.
From this example in the picture above: the websites on SERPs are almost always relevant to the query entered in the search box. That’s because Google search algorithms go into work.
From time to time, the algorithms face slight changes in operation and delivery.
Why Do Updates Happen?
Google search algorithm updates change frequently, and most times, the search engine doesn’t make the information as to why publicly. However, some of these updates to their search algorithms are noticeable by webmasters and SEO experts.
But why do these google updates happen? The answer is simple. Like other software companies, Google wants to improve its service delivery to users worldwide.
When people conduct organic searches for something, they want to see relevant content about their inquiries without spending time looking for it.
Thus, Google is constantly reviewing its ‘core updates’ to ensure they present users with authority results during organic searches. These updates happen almost every day.
What Is a Google Core Update?
Google core updates are processes to improve the quality of search results for users. These core updates may shuffle how websites are ranked or indexed.
Each core update released is either an improvement of a previous update or an introduction to a new set of rules.
History of Google Algorithm Updates
Google algorithm updates have been implemented since 2003, resulting in changes in the search index, refreshes, and content displayed on SERPs. In 2020 alone, Google made 4,500 changes to search algorithms. This is just a testament that Google is continuously changing how content appears on results.
In 2003, Google incorporated the Google Dance update, which indexed web pages every day instead of implementing an algorithm change monthly. Google also made it almost impossible for websites to rank on SERPs using manipulative SEO strategies.
From 2004 to 2006, google algorithms for SEO were mere additions and improvements. In 2007, Google confirmed that the PageRank scores would be lowered for websites selling links to promote other sites. It also announced that it will be giving algorithm penalty for some of those sites.
In 2008 and 2009, Google update change history included the Dewey and Vince updates, respectively. While the Dewey update focused on webmasters giving feedback on some algorithm improvements, the Vince update implemented factors of page quality, rank, and trust as metrics for ranking websites.
From 2010 to 2012, several Google algorithm updates focused on flagging websites that were buying links to boost their rankings. It also focused on preventing low-quality websites from ranking higher on SERPs, even though they had optimized their keywords.
From 2013 to 2016, Google released their algorithm’s Panda and RankBrain updates, improving English language queries. The Google algorithm change history also included a Mobile Friendly update to increase a page’s rank based on its mobile-friendliness.
In 2017, the search engine algorithm updates included changes to improve relevancy and remove redundant search results. In 2018, core updates focused on improving the rankings of websites with high-quality content previously considered low quality.
In 2019, the updates released focused on improving user experience and understanding natural languages on web pages. There was a massive rollout in 2020, where the update centered on improving the results of over 70 languages.
The whole of 2021 was dedicated to improving local searches, nullifying spam links, and user page experience.
In 2022, google search algorithm updates were centered on improving website rankings based on high-quality product reviews from customers.
What Are the Biggest Google Algorithm Updates?
The fascinating aspect about google algorithm updates is that you may not be aware of them, and they might not affect your rankings. Some of the noticeable google search algorithm updates include:
● Panda. These core google updates focused on removing websites with duplicate content, plagiarized content, think content, and keyword stuffing. It also assigns a quality score to web pages.
● Hummingbird. This update removes websites with keyword stuffing and low-quality content from ranking higher on SERPs.
● Mobile. The search engine algorithm update aims to rank websites based on how mobile-friendly they are since about 72% of organic searches are done on mobile devices.
● RankBrain. These core updates lower the ranking of websites with poor user experience, shabby content, and irrelevance in organic searches.
● Penguin. These search algorithms focused on down-ranking websites with spam or irrelevant links or overstuffed anchor texts.
● Bert. This Google algorithm update focused on understanding natural languages and interpreting text on web pages. It also removes websites with poorly written content and context from appearing at the top of SERPs.
● Core Updates. These updates are relatively unknown. However, most of them are designed to improve existing updates.
● Medic. The google search engine algorithm focuses on the expertise, authority, and trust (E-A-T) signals to rank websites.
These Google updates are the most significant updates released so far.
How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?
Google algorithm updates happen close to 600 times every year. This means 2 to 3 minor updates are happening daily. Some of these updates do not impact your current SEO rankings, while others might change how you optimize your websites.
Google typically announces those updates to ensure that webmasters and digital marketing review their existing operations.
How to Recover From Google Algorithm Update
If your web pages have been significantly affected by a Google algorithm update, follow these steps to recover:
● Understand what the update was about. You need to understand what each major algorithm update means for your website.
● Analyze web traffic. Look at your web performance from your Google Search Console or Google Analytics dashboard. You need to compare the current web traffic with previous data to compare the results.
● Evaluate if your competitors were affected. You need to perform SERP analysis on your competitors’ websites to see if they were also affected.
● Address the issues on the core updates. Core updates from google come with an explanation for the update release. You need to understand what it means to develop strategies to keep your website on track. Google has released the Quality Rater Guidelines to address some of the updates’ issues.
Google Algorithm for SEO
Google algorithm for SEO addresses using keywords to establish website rankings on SERPs. Most webmasters take advantage of this by overstuffing particular keywords throughout their website content.
The rationale is that Google algorithms will rank their web pages higher due to repeated use of the keywords. But Google discovered this and released the Medic, Panda, and Penguin updates to tackle this.
This resulted in algorithm penalty for websites with overstuffed keywords and irrelevant content.
What Is the Latest Google Update for SEO?
The May 2022 Core Update is the recent google algorithm update released. This core update aims to improve local algorithm change concerning organic search.
There’s bound to be a noticeable change in how a website ranks for local and national queries. However, Google has highlighted that some webmasters may not tweak their digital marketing strategies while others may need to do so to rank higher on SERPs.
Conclusion
Google algorithm updates are meant to improve how web pages appear on search results. Understanding what they’re about will save you quality time in improving your website for SERPs rankings.