Google Algorithm Updates
In the beginning,
in 90's, search engines was not as effective as it is today; it was mainly
focused on keyword matching and backlinks. So, it was quite easy for the
low-quality websites to rank higher by targeting their exact keywords with lots
of backlinks.
To solve this
problem, Google introduced a algorithm to filter the results so that it could
clean the web. Since then Google is continuously updating its algorithm to
maintain and improve the efficiency of its search engine.
Some of the major Google updates which
helped it filter sites more precisely and clean the web effectively are given
below:
2016 Updates
Penguin 4.0
Penguin 4.0 was
announced on September 23, 2016, with few changes like it will be part of core
algorithm, will update in real time and will be page specific instead of
affecting the entire domain.
Mobile Friendly Boost Update
It was launched in
May 12, 2016, to help mobile-friendly sites on mobile search.
2015 Updates
Panda 4.2
On 17 July 2015,
Google rolled out Panda refresh (Panda 4.2). It has no immediate effect on
rankings. According to Google, it impacted 2?3 % of English language search
queries.
Mobile-Friendly Update (Mobilegeddon)
It was rolled out
on 21 April, 2015. It made mobile-friendliness an important ranking factor for
mobile searches. Its job was to boost the rankings of mobile-ready pages so
that quality and relevant content could be provided to mobile users.
2014 Updates
Penguin 3.0
It was introduced
on 17 October 2014. It was just a refresh that helped those websites boost
their ranking who were de-ranked in the previous update (Penguin 2.1).
Panda 4.1
It was the 27th version
of Panda released by Google on 23 September 2014. Google said that it will help
search engine identify poor content so that small or medium sized websites with
quality content could rank better.
Pigeon
It was rolled out
in July 2014, for local businesses. Google said that it will create closer ties
between local and core algorithms so that people could find useful and accurate
information in local search results.
Panda 4.0
This Panda update
was introduced on 19 May 2014, to help small websites and businesses with
limited resources. It was a change a data refresh; a change in Panda algorithm.
2013 Updates
Hummingbird 1.0
It was introduced
by Google on 20 August 2013 to better understand the changing face of the Web.
It was capable of understanding the intent of long search terms instead of just
recognizing specific keyword. It helped Google recognize long-tail search terms
and accurately rank answers to such long-tail keywords. It enabled users to ask
questions and get appropriate answers.
2012 Updates
Penguin
It was introduced
on 24th April 2012 to target the sites that were spamming the
search results by buying links or using some other link networks designed
specifically to boost rankings. Google issued warnings through Webmaster tools
and penalized the sites for not following its guidelines.
2011 Updates
Panda/Farmer
It was first launched
on Feb24 2011. This algorithm was used to assign a score to webpages based on
the quality of the content and de-rank the sites with low-quality content. Its
job was to identify and de-rank content farms, sites offering thin content or
sites with high ad-to-content ratio.
2010 Updates
Caffeine
In June 2010,
Google updated its caffeine algorithm to introduce new web indexing system. It
helped Google to improve the speed of search engine and integrated crawling and
indexing that resulted in a fifty percent fresher index.
2009 Updates
Caffeine (Preview)
In August 2009,
Google released Caffeine (Preview); the upcoming infrastructure change to
improve and integrate indexing, crawling and range of their search engine
index.
Vince
It was introduced
in February 2009. It was seen as a big change that would favor big brands but
Google?s Matt Cutts cleared that it was a minor change focused on ranking
signals like trust and authority.
2007 Updates
Buffy
It was introduced
in June 2007. This update was named in honor of Google's Vanessa Fox. Matt
Cutts said that it was just some minor changes like the integration of search
results with news, images and videos, etc.
2005 Updates
Bigdaddy
It was rolled out
in December 2005. It was an infrastructure change that brought new
technicalities related to URL canonicalization, redirects, etc. It helped
Google to prepare for future developments.
2004 Updates
Brandy
This update was
launched in February 2004. It expanded Google?s index and incorporated Latent
Semantic Indexing (LSI) which enabled Google to better understand synonyms.
Austin
It was introduced
on 23rd January 2004. This update was actually some
improvements in the Florida update. It targeted the on-page spam tactics like
invisible text and meta-tag stuffing.
2003 Updates
Florida
It was introduced
on 16 November, 2003. It brought significant change to Google's algorithm and
put an end to the use of keyword stuffing to manipulate search engine results.
Fritz
It was introduced
in July 2013. With this update Google changed its way of updating the index;
now instead of indexing on a monthly basis, it started indexing on daily basis.
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