Google frequently updates its search algorithm to enhance search result quality, user experience, and combat spam. These updates, such as Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, target various aspects of website quality. Panda, launched in 2011, penalizes low-quality content like thin or duplicated material. Penguin, from 2012, cracks down on black-hat SEO tactics such as keyword stuffing and unnatural links. Hummingbird, introduced in 2013, focuses on understanding search intent for more relevant results. Pigeon, in 2014, improved local search accuracy, while Mobilegeddon incentivized mobile-friendly sites in 2015. RankBrain, from 2015, introduced machine learning for query understanding, and BERT in 2019 further refined natural language processing. Core Updates, like those in 2019 and 2020, aim at overall search quality without specific targets. Website owners and SEO professionals need to stay abreast of these updates to optimize their sites and maintain visibility in Google's evolving search landscape.
2. WHAT IS GOOGLE ALGORITHM ?
In simple terms, the Google algorithm in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is like a
set of rules or instructions that Google uses to decide which websites should
show up when someone searches for something.
3. KEY COMPONENTS OF GOOGLE ALGORITHM :-
● Relevance
● Quality
● Backlinks
● User Experience
● Freshness
● Structured Data
5. PANDA (February 2011)
Panda was designed to reduce the rankings for low-quality sites (“sites which are
low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very
useful”) and reward better rankings to high-quality sites (“sites with original content
and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on”).
6. PENGUIN (April 2012)
Penguin targeted websites with spammy or manipulative backlink profiles. It focused
on penalizing websites that engaged in link schemes or bought links to manipulate
search rankings.It is mainly to the quality of backlinks.
7. HUMMINGBIRD (August 2013)
The Hummingbird update is a significant update of Google's search algorithm that
focuses on interpreting natural language queries and the context of the words in a
search string to deliver more accurate results and better satisfy searcher intent.This
algorithm is mainly related to the keyword stuffing.
8. PIGEON (July 2014)
To ultimately improve its local search capabilities, Google enhanced hundreds of
ranking signals for both Google Search and Google Maps. This also meant Google’s
location and distance ranking parameters were also improved to better provide
local, relevant results to users based. It mainly focuses on improving local search
results.
9. MOBILEGEDDON(April 2015)
Imagine you're trying to read a book, but the text is so tiny and spread out that it's hard
to enjoy. Mobilegeddon is like Google saying, "Let's make sure websites are easy to
read and use on phones and tablets.It mainly "focuses on mobile-friendly websites”.
10. RANKBRAIN (October 2015)
Imagine you're asking Google a question, but it's a bit tricky. You might not use the
perfect words, or it could be a bit confusing. RankBrain is like Google's brainy assistant
that helps understand these tricky questions and give you better search results.It uses
an artificial intelligence (AI) component of Google's search algorithm.
11. POSSUM (September 2016)
Imagine you're looking for a place to buy flowers in your city. You type "flower shops
near me" into Google. The Possum update helps Google provide you with more diverse
and accurate local search results.It is mainly about improving local search results.
12. FRED(March 2017)
Imagine you're a gardener trying to grow beautiful flowers in your garden. You carefully
plant and tend to your flowers, making sure they're healthy and vibrant. Google's Fred
update is a bit like a gardener tending to the "garden" of websites on the internet,
weeding out the ones that aren't up to standard.It is mainly targets websites that are
more focused on making money than providing valuable and helpful content to users.
13. MEDIC (August 2018)
Imagine you're at a pharmacy looking for advice on which medicine to buy. You want
trustworthy information from someone who knows what they're talking about. That's
what Google's Medic update is like, but for websites offering health and wellness
advice.It aims to ensure that websites offering health-related content are reliable,
trustworthy, and accurate.
14. BERT (October 2019)
Imagine you're talking to a friend who's really good at understanding the context of
what you're saying. They can grasp the meaning even if you don't explain everything in
detail. That's what Google's BERT update does for search.BERT stands for
"Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers”. It's a fancy name for a
new way Google understands the words you type into the search bar.
15. PAGE EXPERIENCE UPDATE (June 2021)
Imagine you're looking for a book in a library. You want to find it quickly, without any
hassle, and once you have it, you want it to be easy to read and understand. That's what
the Page Experience update is like for websites on Google.It mainly focuses on how
users interact with web pages.
