By: Shreya Parmar
Ever happened, you are eagerly waiting for the thing that the director uploads in the next episode of your favorite series from time to time? The directors always come up with better storyline, double excitement, and again tons of curiosity for the awaited next episode. Google always comes up with new updates in Google Algorithm which developers are always eagerly waiting for. A bit interesting right, how Google algorithm works and what it is… not many people know answers to these questions. And we are not in much fault too, Google majorly never reveals their secrets regarding Google Algorithm updates. Afterall, it is the unspoken ethic of all magicians not to reveal their secret.
Probably, Internet Marketers would have definitely heard about Google Algorithm. What Google does is, it comes up with a new algorithm every short period of time and updates it and improves it with better output. From a survey it has been found out that in 2019 around 3234 improvements were confirmed. In this figure if you apply your mathematical skills you’ll observe that on an average Google made around 9 improvements per day. Okay okay my apologies, the correct figure is actually 8.8602734. Does this make you guys feel any better? You won’t even notice the effects of these small changes in terms of your page rankings.
From this I would like to review the lost words of Matt Cutts a decade ago that
“We might batch [algorithm changes] up and go to a meeting once a week where we talk about 8 or 10 or 12 or 6 different things that we would want to launch, but then after those get approved ... those will roll out as we can get them into production.”
To omit Google Algorithms’ secret, first what you need to know is what the algorithm actually means? An algorithm is a set of instructions for solving a problem or accomplishing a task. If we talk in a computer's language, then an algorithm sets a task to say even nos. between 1 to 50. This is just a glance for understanding algorithms which may be helpful to learn complex ones too.
Ever wondered how Google tells you whatever you search! Is there one world's most intelligent person sitting over there and filling your results with proper solutions? If it is then how is that one person able to answer 100 searches simultaneously? Think about the last time you searched something on Google, could be anything; “Mcdonald’s Shop near me” or “Latest Marvel Movies”… Our dearest Google, would have shown you tons of results for what you’ve searched.
How did the search engine decide which results are best suitable for you? And in what manner they are supposed to be shown? For this, Google uses a very complex algorithm which changes frequently. When you have to show results from all the information available on the web, what you need to do is classify it and rank it. Google’s ranking system is only designed to do this tiny little job of sorting through hundreds of billions of webpages in our Search index to find the most relevant, useful results in a fraction of a second, and present them in a way that helps you find what you’re looking for. Series of algorithms make this thing possible in real life. One of the things which help in ranking is the amount of naturally-occurring, organic links to the page; and the keyword’s appearance in the page’s title or header tags.
1. Assemble the content of Web
Even before we search anything Google assembles information about
webpages in our Search index.
The index is nothing but a library, except for the fact that it contains
more info than in all the world’s libraries put together.
2. On the Spot tone with our search
In a blink of an eye, Google’s Search algorithms sort through hundreds of billions of webpages in our Search index to find the most relevant results for what we’re looking for.
3. Handover results in helpful technique-
To help us find what we’re looking for instantly, Google provides results in many useful formats. Whether presented as a map with directions, images, videos or stories; and in addition they are constantly evolving with new ways to present information.
4. Here’s to learn one new thing
Google says “We only sell ads, not search results”. This means that advertisers can pay to be displayed in clearly marked sections of the page, no one can buy better placement in the search results.
5. Invariably boosts our experience
Everybody including them knows that Search can always be better. That’s why Google engineers spend every day testing it, conducting hundreds of thousands of experiments every year, resulting in thousands of improvements.
Well actually so sad that Google rarely gives us any sign regarding changes in Google algorithm unless they are huge. But it will be helpful if you stay up-to-date with Google’s algorithm and not to game them. But we can surely look into updates till now.
The Panda Update (2011)
It targets feeble and not-asked for content that did not help the end-user. Narrow content, duplicate content and content with too many ads are all banned.
The Penguin Update (2012)
Another update which deals with quality content. This update targeted spam by looking at backlinks. It rewarded those with quality, organic backlinks and banned those with artificial backlink profiles.
The Hummingbird Update (2013)
The Hummingbird update made semantic search smarter. It was designed to help Google better understand intent and context.
The Mobile Update (2015)
It forced all sites to become mobile-friendly or risk being penalized in the SERPs
The AdWords Update (2016)
Google fundamentally changed the way that paid search listings appeared on the SERP.
The Google "Fred" Update (2017)
Fred had a huge impact on organic listings, with a number of sites experiencing traffic declines from 50 to 90%.
"Medic" Core Update (2018)
Google did not confirm the specific purpose of this update, it had a large impact on health, finance. SEO experts speculated that this Google update boosted the rank of high-quality articles that offer advice on major life issues, such as finances and health.
Site Diversity (2019)
The Site Diversity update is an adjustment that tends to discard multiple listings from the same domain from the SERP.
January Core (2020)
Google recommends that users pay attention to E.A.T, or expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. The content that continues to align with these objectives will be the content that then sees the best rankings.
December Core (2020)
After EAT, Google also recommends getting to know quality rater guidelines in order to understand how Google systems work and how your content is rated. Also informative and creative content can be ranked higher.
Smaller changes are done by Google itself, we won’t even notice it first. It would be more imperative if we stop future questioning and doubting Google Algorithms and try to simply acknowledge the power that Google algorithm has and try to make correct use out of it. Whichever is the new Google Algorithm update it is definitely going to help us in this or other way. Spoiler alert Shhhhhh : “SEO experts think that the next update is going to be on Content”.
