Google algorithms: what they are and how they affect your website
Google algorithms: How has Google and its algorithm changed?
Do you work on the Internet and positioning webs?
If the answer is yes, one of your biggest concerns should be changes to Google’s algorithm.
Why?
Every time Google makes a big change to its algorithm, the rules of the game change. You have to adapt to the new requirements that the search engine is implementing.
The rules of the game change
The classic example on Google is keyword stuffing. What does it consist of? You create repetitions of keywords in a very exaggerated way and bury them deep in the website. Sometimes it consists of imperceptible font sizes and sometimes even in the same colors as the background of the website.
That worked really well back in the day, but now it’s a bit crazy to think about using this strategy.
The same thing happened with the links. Nobody thought it unusual to receive hundreds of inbound links or to send out hundreds of outbound links in return. Unimaginable today.
And it will change. With Google algorithms, you never know.
In this post I am going to give you a review of some of the algorithm changes that have most marked the evolution of our ways of working. Obviously there are a lot more, upstream and downstream, but these are the ones that have most influenced the rules of the SEO game.
Caffeine
Google Caffeine was implemented in June 2010
An update that was quite important. It turned the search engine into something much more dynamic and made it much faster.
What did this mean for the search engine? That it would index the contents in a much faster way and, in the same way, it would capture the changes of the web much faster than it did before.
Panda
The first appearance of Google Panda was in February 2011.
I say the first because many later implementations of this algorithm have been made.
What did Google Panda focus on? The focus was on the content of the web, specifically, in the quality of that content.
The purpose of this algorithm was to devalue the positioning of websites whose content was not relevant or was of poor quality.
Which websites were the most affected by this new case of Google algorithms?
- Those who copied content.
- Those that created low-quality automated content.
- Those with poor content.
Freshness
In November 2011 Google changed its algorithm once again.
It had quite an impact on some content that was considered to be changing over time. In other words, in some searches, it began to give more relevance to new and more updated content.
From here on, they began to talk about the increase in the importance of renewing some static content. And at the same time, introduce totally new content to keep the websites updated.
Venice
Venice was introduced in February 2012
This novel algorithm from Google marked a before and after for local searches.
Until Venice, when you wanted to search for a local service in a city, you needed to do a search like “plumber in Denver”, But after Venice was implemented, Google began to show results from each city in local searches, based on your location.
That is to say, you could search for a plumber from an IP in Denver and see results for plumbers in Denver. Carry out the same search from Philadelphia and the results will be localized to your location in Philly.
This meant a big change when it came to working on the positioning of local searches.
Penguin
An update to this dreaded algorithm was in April 2012.
Dreaded because in its first appearance it created devastation regarding search results. Many websites were penalized and chaos was rampant within the world of SEO.
What was Penguin based on?
It was based on several factors.
But the one that gave us the most headaches was the links. Before Google Penguin came out, all kinds of links were made practically without control. It was very difficult to have problems for them (although not impossible).
Google Penguin measures the quality of the links and penalizes websites with very poor quality or artificial links.
The problem that this algorithm had is that once you were penalized there was no going back. It was unavoidable until there was a new implementation of it.
Subsequently, several Penguin updates were made without drastic changes until reaching the 4.0 update in September 2016 that we were all waiting for.
Why was it so expected?
It was an implementation of the Penguin algorithm directly in the core. It allowed the evaluation of the links to be done in real time.
This was great news, because you no longer had to wait for a new Penguin implementation to get out of algorithmic link penalties.
Copyright
Copyright arrived August 2012
It started with a wave of Copyright penalties. The vast majority of these penalties were due to DMCA requests.
This had a great impact on the websites of movies, songs, etc. that had become so fashionable in those years. One of the most remembered algorithm changes made by Google.
EMD
Until September 2012, having an exact keyword EMD (exact match domain) domain meant having greater ease in positioning that specific keyword.
The registration of these types of domains were abused in order to position better, with the least possible effort.
This was something that changed with this update and that greatly devalued the position that these types of domains had.
Hummingbird
Another great update was in August 2013.
What was Hummingbird based on? Hummingbird was based on semantic search, with a greater connection between concepts in general.
That is, Google was going to interpret related words, context, etc. much better. A reaction that increased the importance of semantics within our content..
Mobile Friendly
In April of 2015 Google launched the news that it would focus on websites optimized for the mobile phone.
It would show different results for mobile searches than it does for PC searches. In other words, there would be a differentiation of some SERPs for mobile and others for PC.
What did this mean? That everyone who did not have a mobile version of their website until then, had to create one to prevent their mobile SERPs from losing their position.
RankBrain
Another of Google’s big announcements came in October 2015, with RankBrain. Although it is likely that this algorithm was actually being applied.
What is RankBrain? The search engine’s algorithm was smarter and not only were updates made to improve it, but the algorithms are able to learn.
It was improved to be smarter and learn from websites that did things wrong and from websites that did things right.
Algoritmo Fred
Arrived March 8, 2017, with official confirmation from Google 15 days later.
This algorithmic change, according to John Mueller, affected sites that had a low quality and that were full of advertisements and promotions.
Ultimately, this change was what served to measure the authenticity and usefulness of a website. There will be a lot to talk about with Fred.
Google Algorithms
Knowing the main algorithmic changes of Google will allow you to work on the SEO of your website safely and without last minute surprises.
Google’s algorithms today
Since the beginning of SEO until now things have changed a lot, it is true.
In essence SEO remains the same. We still have to create websites and optimize SEO on the page. And we have to continue working on link building, in a more natural way and with more quality than before.
In general, current SEO has evolved towards greater naturalness in all aspects, both in content and in links..
👉🏻 We have to focus on making quality content for the user.
👉🏻 Improve our CTR and UX.
👉🏻 Remember that you have to work on semantics and synonyms within our content.
⚠️ The repetition of keywords is a thing of the past.
