Google Algorithm Updates

The Web trends & SEO practices have been dominated by famous algorithm updates, search index changes and refreshes of Google! Whenever search ranking algorithms of Google are updated, sites can do better or worse in the search results. 

Cedar Software Technologies, a leading digital marketing company providing the best SEO services in Kochi brings to you a list of Google Algorithm. Check them out…

Panda (February 24, 2011)

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

Assigning a supposed “quality score” to web pages; which is then used as a ranking factor. Panda rollouts have become more frequent, so both penalties and recoveries now happen faster.

Penguin (April 24, 2012)

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

The Penguin’s update works real time & down-ranks sites whose links seem manipulative. A part of Google’s core algorithm since late 2016.

Hummingbird (August 22, 2013)

Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low-quality content

The Hummingbird update makes it possible for a page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered. Keywords are still important.

Pigeon (July 24, 2014 (US); December 22, 2014 (UK, Canada, Australia))

Hazards: Poor on- and off-page SEO

Local searches were most affected by Pigeon algorithm update. Closer ties are created between the local algorithm and the core algorithm. Local results ranked by traditional SEO factors.

Mobilegeddon (April 21, 2015)

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

The Mobile Update ensures that mobile-friendly pages rank at the top of mobile searches & others are filtered out from the SERPs.

RankBrain (October 26, 2015)

Hazards: Query-specific relevance features lacking; shallow content; poor UX

Very much a fundamental part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm, the RankBrain algorithm update identifies relatable features of web pages ranking for a given query.

Possum (September 1, 2016)

Hazards: Tense competition in your target location

The algorithm update Possum influences the local results depending on the searcher’s location. The closer you get to a business’s address, the possibility of seeing it among local results is more. 

Fred (March 8, 2017)

Hazards: Thin, affiliate-heavy or ad-centered content

Websites that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines are most affected by the Google algorithm update – Fred. The most affected were Blogs with low-quality posts created mostly for the purpose of generating ad revenue. 

March 2019 Core Update (March 12, 2019)

Hazards:  poor user experience (due to excessive pop-ups, poor navigation, over-optimization sites.

The update affected sites whose search traffic increased experienced higher rankings site-wide, with no increase in the number of keywords ranked.

Google BERT Natural Language Processing Update BERT ( October 21, 2019)

It is Google’s AI powered update intended to serve hyper-relevant results. BERT model processes words in relation to all the other words in a sentence, rather than one-by-one in order. 

Hope this article has been informational and useful. Get in touch with us at Cedar Software Technologies for effective digital marketing services in Kochi.