A Historical Overview of the Most Impactful Google Search Engine Updates

TLDR;

• Google has made many core changes to its search engine

• will award and penalize a website rank based on algorithm factors

• some changes are specifically aimed to understand user intent

• Google search continues to be improved :)

Introduction

Google is the world's most popular search engine. Google search currently represents over 92% of the world's search traffic (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share). Google search began in 1997 and become very popular by 2000.

Over the past 20 years, Google has made many updates to its search algorithm. These updates are classified as either core updates affecting 5% - 10% of all searches or minor updates affecting 0.1% - 1% of all searches.

Understanding how Google search works is important for SEO. While Google keeps its exact search algorithm a secret we can infer some usable SEO tactics from data analysis. In this article, we briefly summarize some of Google's most notable core updates from the past twenty years.

Why Does Google Update its Search Algorithm?

Google has continued to improve its search engine throughout the based twenty years. While reflecting on these changes it became clear that there are three major reasons for updates: to award value for high-quality websites, penalize websites using SEO hacks, and improve the understanding of a search user's intent.

there are three major reasons for updates: to award value for high-quality websites, penalize websites using SEO hacks, and improve the understanding of a search user's intent.

Important Google Search Updates 2001 - 2010

While Google search began in 1997 it becomes quite popular in the year 2000. Google made several broad changes to its search results. Many of these changes were designed to directly penalize SEO hacks and black-hat techniques used in an attempt to trick Google search into ranking pages higher than they were worth. Here is a shortlist of some documented changes by Google.

... penalize SEO hacks and black-hat techniques used in an attempt to trick Google search into ranking pages higher than they were worth.

• 2003 - penalized sites using black-hat keyword tactics

• 2005 - penalized websites using backlink spam

• 2006 - penalized websites using backlink spam

• 2009 - awarded established brands with trust signals

• 2010 - penalized websites with poor content

• 2010 - awarded sites with original content

Important Google Search Updates 2011 - 2020

There have been several impactful updates to Google Search in the past ten years. Here we will review eight of the most important. With each update, we offer a short description, a list summary, and a few tips to help improve your SEO.

Google "Panda" Search Update 2011

The Panda update was aimed to award value to high-quality websites, and penalize low-quality websites. The Panda update was important because it addresses several bad website design practices.

Summary

• penalized websites with thin content, duplicate, and low-quality content

• penalized websites with a lack of authority or trust

• penalized websites that used content farming practices

• penalize websites with a high ad-to-content ratio

• penalize websites that other users are blocking

SEO Tips

• stop content farming

• reduce the number of ads

• remove duplicate content

• use Robots.txt to stop Google from indexing some pages

Google "Penguin" Search Update 2012

The Penguin update was an effort to award high-quality websites and penalized websites that engaged in manipulative link-building strategies and keyword stuffing.

The Penguin updates were a series of 10 updates from 2012 - 2016. You can find out more information by searching "Google Penguin 1.0", "Google Penguin 2.0", "Google Penguin 3.0", and "Google Penguin 4.0".

Summary

• penalized websites with manipulative back-link strategies

• penalized websites using keyword stuffing techniques

SEO Tips

• remove any unnatural links to your website

• disavowal spammy links you can't remove

• do not stuff keywords into your website

Google "Hummingbird" Search Update 2013

The Google Hummingbird update was a major overhaul of the search algorithm. This was the first major core update that indicates the commitment of Google Search to understand and intuit the intent of a user.

Search intent is easily understood with the contrast of two questions: "what are you searching for?" and "what do you hope to find?" The Hummingbird update aimed to bridge the gap between what a user is searching for and what (Google believes) they want to find.

The Hummingbird update aimed to bridge the gap between what a user is searching for and what (Google believes) they want to find.

Search intent is the term used to refer to the actual intent of the search engine user. Search algorithms will determine what they think they a user meant and use that in the page rank algorithm for a given query.

Hummingbird was a major step toward advanced SERP results using the Google's knowledge graph, and NLP processing of semantic search. This update also enabled future voice search features and usefulness.

Summary

• Google wants to understand users intent

• Google will show results for what it thinks you want to find

SEO Tips

• write content for the search queries of your target market

• identify the location and range of your services

Google "Pigeon" Search Update 2014

The Google Pigeon update had a large effect on local SEO. Google previously had separated some features in local search from their web search algorithm. The Pigeon update helped to combine them.

With this update, Google effectively calculates the distance from a search query to the set of matching businesses in their local area. Google will then use these metrics to show particular local businesses based on distance and a variety of other ranking factors.

Summary

• Google will consider distance and location when serving a SERP

SEO Tips

• improve your local SEO

• stay consistent with traditional SEO strategies

• report spam results for queries where you should be ranking

Google "Mobilegeddon" Search Update 2015

A Google search update gave priority to websites that display well on smartphones and mobile devices. An increasing number of people are searching with Google through their mobile devices, and the SERP results now reflect websites designed to work well on mobile.

An increasing number of people are searching with Google through their mobile devices, and the SERP results now reflect websites designed to work well on mobile.

The term "Mobilegeddon" was an overblown euphemism used in the SEO industry to create a sense of drama. Non-mobile-friendly websites only reported an average decreased of 21% in the SERP position. This update only applied to search queries made from a mobile device.

Summary

• penalized websites that were no mobile-friendly

• awarded websites that were mobile-friendly

SEO Tips

• make website mobile-friendly

Google "RankBrain" Search Update 2015

The Google RankBrain update was an improvement to the way semantic intent was interpreted through the use of machine learning. Search queries are now interpreted by a machine learning model to help improve the relevance of top search results.

Summary

• machine learning is used to help determine a context

• identical search queries may produce different SERP based on user data

• search is better at grouping and categorizing like terms

SEO Tips

• create content that addresses the needs of your users

• consider the signals you want to serve and build a brand

Google "BERT" Search Update 2019

The Google BERT update is the result of a culmination and improvement upon many specific natural language processing and machine learning models used to infer a search user's intent.

BERT stands for "bidirectional encoder representations from transformers. This is a deep learning model that connects every output to every input with dynamic weights based on their connection.

Google search becomes better at understanding questions

BERT is an unsupervised deep neural network that was pre-trained on Wikipedia content. The model was trained to identify "masked" words through context before and after.

Summary

• Google search becomes better at understanding questions

SEO Tips

• focus on creating good content

• don't over-hype any single Google search update

Google "Medic" Search Update 2020

The Google Medic update was a broad global change to search engine results for websites that were classified as medical, financial, or legal. The acronym YMYL know as "Your Money or Your Life" is used to capture the relevant topics this update has affected.

Google evaluates the quality of a website through its EAT signals, that is how it measures authority or domain expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Google evaluates the quality of a website through its EAT signals, that is how it measures authority or domain expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Summary

• affected search ranking for websites with medical, legal, and financial content

• awarded or penalized YMYL websites based on their expertise, authority, and trust signals

SEO Tips

• focus on product and service safety

• manage reputation

• develop domain authority

• ensure content is accurate and high quality

References

• “Google Search Algorithm Updates : Search Engine Roundtable.” Seroundtable, www.seroundtable.com/category/google-updates. Accessed 5 August 2021.

• “Google Algorithm Updates & Changes: A Complete History.” Search Engine Journal, www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/. Accessed 5 August 2021.

Summary

Google will continue to update its search algorithm with major core and minor updates. There have been many significant updates in the last twenty years that have affected the rank position of websites.

It is important to consider the history of Google's search updates to understand the context and direction of possible future changes.

It is important to consider the history of Google's search updates to understand the context and direction of possible future changes. Most of the updates have been directly focused on penalizing websites using malicious tactics to artificially inflate their rank position or award high-quality websites for their content and trust signals.

Google has and will likely continue to make improvements in the areas of natural language processing and semantic understanding to better improve search results based on the apparent intent of search users.