UNIT II: GOOGLE ALGORITHMS

Google Algorithms - Florida - Austin - Brandy - No follow attribute - Personalized search -

Universal search update - Vince - Caffeine - Panda - Penguin

8 major Google Algorithms

Of countless Google algorithm updates introduced over the last decade, here are the ones that
changed SEO forever.

Google claims to update its search algorithm several thousand times per year. In the absolute
majority of cases, Google algorithm updates are too small to notice. But, every once in a while,
Google introduces a change so fundamental, that it disrupts the way we do SEO forever.

In this post, we will be counting down eight of the most critical search algorithm changes. We
will look into why these updates were introduced, how they work and what adjustments we had
to make to our SEO strategies in response.

But before we start, let’s see if you’ve ever been impacted by an algorithm update. All you need
to do is launch Rank Tracker, sync it with your Google Analytics account and switch to Organic
Traffic.
Just over your mouse over the dash lines on the graph to see if certain algo updates correspond
with your site’s traffic changes.

1. Panda

Date: February 24, 2011

Hazards: Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam; keyword stuffing.

How it works: The Panda algorithm update assigns a so-called “quality score” to web pages.
This score is then used as a ranking factor. Initially, the effects of Panda were mild, but in
January 2016 it was permanently incorporated into Google’s core algorithm. Since then, update
rollouts have become more frequent, so both Panda penalties and recoveries now happen faster.

How to adjust: Run regular site checks for content duplication, thin content, and keyword
stuffing. To do that, you’ll need a site crawler, like SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor.

With the WebSite Auditor’s new Content Editor module, you can also avoid a potential penalty
and create pages without the risk of accidental keyword stuffing. Content Editor analyzes the
pages of your top competitors and provides SEO recommendations based on the content that’s
already successful in Google search.
And if you want to check whether your content is duplicated elsewhere on the web, use a
plagiarism checker like Copyscape.

2. Penguin

Date: April 24, 2012

Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-optimized anchor text.

How it works: Google Penguin’s objective is to down-rank sites whose backlinks look
unnatural. This update put an end to low-effort link building, like buying links from link farms
and PBNs.

How to adjust: To stay safe from the effects of the Google Penguin update, monitor your link
profile’s growth and run regular audits with a backlink checker like SEO SpyGlass. In the tool’s
Summary dashboard, you’ll find a progress graph for your link profile’s growth. Look out for
any unusual spikes: those might be the result of a negative SEO attack by your competitors.

The stats that we know Penguin takes into account are incorporated into SEO SpyGlass’s Penalty
Risk formula. Navigate to the Penalty Risk tab and sort your backlink list from highest risk to
lowest. Links with a risk above 50% should be investigated. If they turn out to be malicious, add
them to the disavow file, download it, and submit it to Google’s Disavow Links Tool.
3. Hummingbird

Date: August 22, 2013

Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low-quality content.

How it works: The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google better interpret search queries and
provide results that match searcher intent (as opposed to the individual terms within the query).
While keywords continue to be important, the Hummingbird algorithm makes it possible for a
page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered. This is
achieved with the help of natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-
occurring terms and synonyms.

How to adjust: Expand your keyword research and focus on concepts behind the keywords.
Carefully analyze related searches, synonyms and co-occurring terms. Great sources of such
ideas are Google Related Searches and Google Related Questions, as well as Google
Autocomplete suggestions. You’ll find all of them incorporated into Rank Tracker’s Keyword
Research module.
Use these insights to better understand your audience’s language and diversify your content. By
creating comprehensive content that satisfies searcher intent, you’ll win both in terms of
engagement and SEO.

4. Mobile

Date: April 21, 2015

Hazards: Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability.

How it works: This, and subsequent mobile search updates (2018, 2020) have shifted the focus
from a desktop to a mobile version of your website. Today, Google ranks all websites based on
how fast and user-friendly their mobile versions are.

How to adjust: Optimize your pages for mobile search and focus on speed and usability.
Google’s mobile-friendly and page speed tests will help you see which aspects of your page need
to be improved. The tests are integrated into WebSite Auditor so you can check your pages’
mobile optimization as a part of your overall website audit. You’ll find it in Content Analysis >
Page Audit:

5. RankBrain

Date: October 26, 2015

Hazards: Lack of query-specific relevance; shallow content; poor UX.

How it works: RankBrain is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. It is a machine learning

system that helps Google understand the meaning behind queries and serve best-matching search
results in response to those queries. Google calls RankBrain the third most important ranking
factor.
While we don’t know the exact formula behind this major update, the consensus is that
RankBrain is responsible for customizing a user’s Google search results. Basically, Google goes
beyond a person’s search query and takes into account the larger context, like synonyms, implied
words, and personal search history.

How to adjust: Optimize your pages for relevance and comprehensiveness with the help of
competitive analysis. With the WebSite Auditor‘s TF-IDF tool, you can discover entire lists of
relevant terms and concepts used by a large number of your top-ranking competitors. Find a way
to add these terms to your content and you will see your search relevance increase dramatically.

6. Medic

Date: May 4, 2018

Hazards: Lack of authority on YMYL websites; weak E-A-T signals.

How it works: The Google Medic update seemed to disproportionately affect medical websites
as well as other websites that have to do with potentially life-altering decisions (finance, law,
education). Although not explicitly confirmed, Google representatives have hinted that the
update implemented some of the E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) signals from the Quality
Rater Guidelines document.

How to adjust: To date, there is no proven recovery strategy for the Medic update. Some SEOs
suggest hiring expert writers to lend credibility to your website, others claim the solution is in
building entities for your brand. But, if we were to stick to the facts, the only reliable way to
increase the authority of your website is by growing your backlink profile. An efficient approach
would be to use a backlink research tool, like SEO SpyGlass, and borrow backlink ideas from
your competitors.
SEO SpyGlass allows you to find the backlink gap between your website and your competitors’
websites. The best prospects are the high-authority websites that link to two or more of your
competitors. This indicates that the websites are interested in your niche, but do not have an
exclusive relationship with any one company.

For more tips, explore this SEO guide based on the Quality Rater Guidelines.

7. Bert

Date: October 22, 2019

Hazards: Poorly written content; lack of focus; lack of context.

How it works: This Google algorithm update uses natural language processing technology to
better understand search queries, interpret text, identify entities and relationships between
entities. We’ve seen Panda, Hummingbird and RankBrain updates move away from keywords,
and the BERT update is the culmination of this effort — it allows Google to understand much
more nuance in both queries and search results.

How to adjust: We’ve finally lived to see the day when Google is actually rewarding good
writing. Like never before, it is important to strive for meaningful copy. It means you should go
easy on fluff words and adopt an expository style of writing. It is also a good idea to do entity
research when creating copy — including relevant entities helps create context for your content.

For more tips, check out this guide on using entities in SEO.

8. Core Updates

Date: 2017-present

How it works: As far back as 2017, Google has started to refer to bigger updates as Google core
updates. Since then, there is even less transparency about what those updates are and which parts
of search they are intended to improve. SEOs would often track post-update ranking shifts and
try to figure out what exactly has changed, but there is rarely a conclusive observation. It is
likely that Google core updates are just improvements on previous Google updates or perhaps
bundles of smaller updates tied together.

How to adjust: Since the effects of Google core updates are often unknown, one thing you can
do is track SERP history for the keywords you are targeting. Once the update happens, you can
check which of your competitors have moved up or down in rankings and make an educated
guess about the contributing factors.

To start tracking your SERP history, launch Rank Tracker, go to Target Keywords > Rank
Tracking > SERP Analysis, and click Record SERP data. The tool will start tracking the top 30
SERP positions for each of your keywords.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search
Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
Google's Personalized Search Explained:

How personalization works, what it means for SEO, and how to make sure it doesn't skew your
ranking reports

As Google's search results grow increasingly personalized, SEO experts are growing
increasingly indignant. Tracking ranking at Google accurately — one of the main SEO KPIs —
has become a challenge as location, previous searches, and browser history now affect the results
that users get. The concept of accuracy itself has become somewhat vague: if there are as many
SERP variations as there are locations, which one should you consider "accurate"?

Even worse: with so many search customization factors involved, you may not be aware that
your ranking data is skewed, influenced by some kind of personalization algorithm you didn't
take into account. Could you be making the wrong decisions based on the wrong data?

In this post, I'll look at the different ways Google personalizes search results, their impact on
SEO, and tips to ensure that personalization doesn't falsify your ranking data. But before we roll,
let's figure out what exactly personalized search is.

What's personalized search?

Personalized search results are the results a user sees in a search engine that aren't just based on
the traditional ranking factors (such as the relevance of the web pages to the search term or their
authority), but also on the information that the search engine has about the user at the given
time, such as their location, search history, demographics, or interests. Although widely debated,
the purpose of personalized search is to increase the relevance of the results for the particular
user.
Both Google and Bing (and hence Yahoo, too) are personalizing their search results, but Google
seems to be doing it for a larger share of searches. Back in 2011, a small experiment showed that
over 50% of Google results were personalize search — with that number having likely gone up
since.

What are the factors that affect personalization?

1. Location

The red dots are places Google knows I've visited over the past few months.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Google knows the searcher's location and uses it in a big part
of the searches we make. What may be more surprising is the preciseness and diligence that
Google tracks this with. If you have location tracking turned on your mobile device, go on
and prepare to be surprised.

If you are not connected to Google via a mobile device, it will figure out where you are from
your IP address. This may not be as precise, but it'll still give Google grounds to tailor search
results to your location.

HOW IT WORKS: Physical businesses and places closest to the searcher are displayed in
the local pack and higher up in the organic results.

For the most part, location data affects searches that imply that the user is looking for a physical
place—thus a major factor for local businesses. Searchers within the same city, standing just a
few miles away from each other, will often see different results for the same search term,
especially in the local pack.

THE PROBLEM FOR SEO: As SERPs differ for searchers depending on their location,
accurate rank tracking becomes a challenge. How do assess results with crucial limited
personalization?

With location changing the SERPs so much, rank tracking doesn't get any less useful — but it
does get harder.
THE SOLUTION: The first step for understanding these Google personalized results, is to
set your target locations and use your rank checking tool to track rankings in each one
separately.

If you have a local business with a physical address, you've got to identify your target locations
and start tracking each of them. In Rank Tracker, you can create as many custom locations as
you want to track rankings for. Here's how you can do that.

1) If you don't have the tool installed yet, download Rank Tracker's free version and install it on
your computer.

2) Fire up the tool and create a project for your site, specifying your target keywords (or, open an
existing one).

3) Go to Preferences > Preferred Search Engines and click the Add Custom link next to Google
(if you're outside the US, make sure to select your country's version of Google: e.g.,
Google.co.uk for the UK and Google.de for Germany).

4) In the Advanced Settings window that pops up, locate the Preferred Location field and enter
the name of the city, district, or exact street address of your target location, and click Apply.
You'll then see the map adjusted to show the location you've specified.
5) Give your localized version of Google a short name, and click OK.

6) Switch back to your Rank Tracker workspace and right-click on the name of any column to
enter the workspace editing mode. Add the newly created search engine to your active columns,
and go on and check your rankings.

Feel free to repeat the process for as many locations as you need.
2. Search and browsing history

Oh snap.

Your previous searches, the search results you clicked on, and your browser history affect how
Google will personalize search results for you in the future. These details let Google understand
what your interests are and tailor your search experience to them.

HOW IT WORKS: Google creates a personalized profile for every searcher based on their
browsing history, search history, and SERP clicks, and subsequently alters the search
results we see based on our interests.

Let me illustrate how search customization works. In a clean browser, I did a search for "kafka"
and got this:

As you see, most of the results I got are about Apache Kafka. Next, I clicked through some of the
results that were about Franz Kafka, the novelist, and dwelled on them. After that, I ran a search
for "kafka" again:
Interestingly, the organic results didn't change much — but the Knowledge Graph panel did. By
now, Google's search personalization algorithms have decided that I'm more interested in
novelists than data software.

THE PROBLEM FOR SEO: First, it gets trickier to double-check your rankings in a
browser. Second, it means that someone who clicked on your competitor's search result in
the past will likely see them as a top result in the future (*sigh*), even if your site's
rankings improve.

At SEO PowerSuite, we often get contacted by our users who see their website ranking higher up
the SERP in their browsers than in Rank Tracker. The reason for that is that you've sure visited
your own site more than a few times through your browser; subsequently, Google assumes you
like that resource (don't you?) and pushes it higher up the search results in your personalized
SERP. Meanwhile, searchers who've never been to your site before will see it ranking much
lower than that.

What about the searchers who haven't visited your site but have been to a competitor's? Well,
their SERPs will likely get personalized in favor of that competitor. If you think about it, that's
not the worst news — after all, that also means that when you get to rank among the top results
for your target keywords, people will start clicking on your result, and this personalization will
begin to work in your favor.

THE SOLUTION: Learn how to de-personalize SERPs in your browser, and keep fighting
for that top position!

Rank Tracker will check your rankings in a de-personalized way by default, so there's no need to
change any extra preferences to enable this. But if you're looking to see the unbiased SERP in
your browser, all you need to do is make sure you're using your browser's Incognito/Private
mode so that your history does not affect the results you get. Mind that your location will still be
affecting the SERPs.

Don't forget that history-based personalization doesn't have to work against you — it can (and
will) work for you as soon as you rank high enough in the SERPs for people to start clicking on
your listing. When someone runs a search for your target keyword for the first time, you've got to
do your best to appear among the top results in the unbiased SERP. If you do, and if the searcher
clicks on your listing, you're becoming their preferred entity, and their subsequent searches will
most likely include your business as the top result.

3. Social media

A graph by Caleb Jones that visualizes his Twitter network.

When you create a Google+ account for example, you give away a lot of demographic data on
yourself, such as your age, gender, interests, and friends. This information, along with your
search and browser history, form your so-called "personalized profile" that Google uses to adjust
the SERPs to your interests.

HOW IT WORKS: Google may add social media posts from your connections to the search
results, push results endorsed by your connections higher up the SERP, and subtly tailor
the search results you get to your profile.

If you have a G+ profile and are logged in to your Google account in your browser, the search
results you see may prominently show content shared by your friends among the page 1 results.
Let me give you an example. I just searched for something as I was logged out of my Google
account:
Nothing special, huh? A moment later, I logged back in and here's what I got:

The result from Google+ comes from Awario, one of my connections on the network.
Interestingly, Google also shows a LinkedIn post which wasn't there when I was logged out of
Google.

THE PROBLEM FOR SEO: Personalized results from social media are pushing down
organic results, and it's getting harder to get to the top spots.

Like with most kinds of personalization, the problem here is that results tailored to particular
searchers' social media profiles are eating up the SERP space and pushing some of the organic
listings down in the search results.

THE SOLUTION: Focus on social media as it may improve your search visibility.

While the social media posts may be shifting your site's rankings down in the personalized
SERPs, they also pose a ranking opportunity. If you create quality content that gets shared across
the social networks, particularly Google+, and keep your social media efforts up, you have every
chance to get more exposure in the SERPs thanks to personalized search.
Remember that: a) people who follow you on Google+ are likely to see your posts among the
search results, and b) those who follow anyone who shared the content are also likely to see it. If
you can build a big audience and reach influencers in your market, your content will likely
continue to scale via personalized search.

4. Device

In 2017, Google's SERPs on desktop and mobile devices have grown so different that it's
probably fairer to call Google mobile a distinct search engine in its own right — one with its own
set of ranking factors.

HOW IT WORKS: Pages are ranked differently on mobile and desktop devices, and search
queries are also interpreted differently.

While authority and relevance signals appear to be largely the same for both Google desktop and
Google mobile, one major difference in the algorithm is the importance of mobile friendliness.
The Mobile algo update has removed pages not optimized for smartphones from the mobile
search results completely (or at least down-ranked them significantly), while pushing mobile-
friendly pages higher up in the SERPs.

With over half of Google queries coming from mobile devices, and the mobile-first index on its
way, you've got to be optimizing your site for mobile as much, if not more, as you are for
desktop.

THE PROBLEM FOR SEO: Google mobile has grown into a search engine in its own right
to track and optimize for.

The mobile versions of search engines (particularly Google) have in fact turned into separate
search engines that look at different factors to rank pages. That's why you need to be tracking
your mobile rankings and your desktop rankings separately.

THE SOLUTION: Track mobile and desktop rankings separately, and keep optimizing for
mobile.
Make sure you're tracking your mobile rankings in addition to your desktop positions. With Rank
Tracker, you can easily set this up by adding Google (as well as Bing and Yahoo) mobile to your
target search engines. To do that, just jump to Preferences > Preferred Search Engines in your
Rank Tracker project and hit the + button next to the mobile version of the search engine you're
looking to add.

After that, just like you did for your custom rank tracking locations, right-click the name of any
column back in your Rank Tracker workspace. Add the mobile search engines to your active
columns, and they'll appear in your main rank tracking view right away.

On top of that, remember to keep optimizing your site for mobile devices and speed (you can
find a comprehensive guide to mobile SEO here).

5. Other Google products you use

Many of Google's search features (think featured snippets, travel boxes, Knowledge Graph
panels) are intended to provide the information the searcher is looking for right on the search
results page, so that we don't have to click through to the search results.

One such feature is a unique type of Google personalization. Namely, Google's use of
information it has about you from its other products — Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Play,
Google Maps, etc. — among the organic search results. This means you can use Google search
engine not only to find new information, but also to remind you of some information that's
between you and Google, think 'Google Personal Search'.
Ask Google when your flight is, the name of the hotel you're staying, and what not — and it'll
happily tell you:

While this likely doesn't impact SEO much (yet), it's an interesting trend towards Google's
development into something much bigger than a search engine with a growing emphasis on
personal search.

Bottom line

Personalized search means there is no consistent search experience across users, locations, and
devices. It's still crucial to track your keywords, but you need to realize that it is not giving you
the exact picture every searcher sees. This is why it's important to keep tracking rankings across
different locations (particularly if you're doing SEO for a physical business) and devices, and
amplify your content marketing efforts and social media presence to win placements in the
personalized SERPs.

That was my overview of personalized search, its SEO implications, and tips on increasing the
accuracy of your rank tracking in 2017.

What's your experience with personalized search? As always, I'm looking forward to your
thoughts and questions in the comments.
 History of Google Algorithm Updates

What are Google Algorithms?

Google’s algorithms are a complex system used to retrieve data from its search index and
instantly deliver the best possible results for a query. The search engine uses a combination of
algorithms and numerous ranking factors to deliver webpages ranked by relevance on its search
engine results pages (SERPs).

In its early years, Google only made a handful of updates to its algorithms. Now, Google makes
thousands of changes every year.

Most of these updates are so slight that they go completely unnoticed. However, on occasion, the
search engine rolls out major algorithmic updates that significantly impact the SERPs such as:

 Fred

 Intrusive Interstitials Update

 Mobilegeddon

 RankBrain

 Panda

 Penguin

 Hummingbird

 Pigeon

 Payday

 EMD (Exact Match Domain)

 Page Layout Algorithm

Below we have compiled a full list of Google algorithm launches, updates, and refreshes that
have rolled out over the years, as well as links to resources for SEO professionals who want to
understand each of these changes.