Google’s Changing Algorithmns Over The Years
- 15
- May
- 2017
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Dates of Major Google Algorithm Changes
The online community Reddit is a good way to while away time watching cat videos, more importantly the community offers a platform where SEO’s can chat and solve each other’s website issues. I’ve used a subreddit post and added extra information about the way Google has evolved over the years.
Panda – February 2011
Goal: De-rank sites with low-quality content
Hazards:
- Duplicate content
- Plagiarism
- Thin content
- User-generated spam
- Keyword stuffing
- Poor user experience
Penguin – April 2012
Goal: De-rank sites with spammy, manipulative link profiles
Hazards:
- Links coming from poor quality, “spammy” sites
- Links coming from sites created purely for SEO link building (PBNs)
- Links coming from topically irrelevant sites
- Paid links
- Links with overly optimized anchor text
Pirate – August 2012
Goal: De-rank sites with copyright infringement reports
Hazards:
- Pirated content
- High volume of copyright infringement reports
Hummingbird – September 2013
Goal: Produce more relevant search results by better understanding the meaning behind queries
Hazards:
- Exact-match keyword targeting
- Keyword stuffing
Pigeon – January 2015
Goal: Provide high quality, relevant local search results
Hazards:
- Poorly optimized pages
- Improper setup of a Google My Business page
- NAP inconsistency
- Lack of citations in local directories (if relevant)
Mobile Friendly Update (Mobilegeddon) – April 2015
Goal: Give mobile-friendly pages a ranking boost in mobile SERPs, and de-rank pages that aren’t optimized for mobile
Hazards:
- Lack of a mobile version of the page
- Improper viewport configuration
- Illegible content
- Plugin use
RankBrain – October 2015
Goal: Deliver better search results based on relevance & machine learning
Hazards:
- Lack of query-specific relevance features
- Poor user experience
Possum – September 2016
Goal: Deliver better, more diverse results based on the searcher’s location and the business’ address
Hazards:
- Sharing a physical address with a similar business
- Competitors whose business address is closer to the searcher’s location
Fred – March 2017
Goal: Filter out low quality search results whose sole purpose is generating ad and affiliate revenue
Hazards:
- Low-value, ad-centered content
- Thin, affiliate-heavy content
The Google Fred Update which we first spotted rolling out early morning on March 8th, 2017 seems to be fairly big. After reviewing well over 70 sites that were hit by this update, 95% of them share two things in common. The sites all seem content driven, either blog formats or other content like sites and they all are pretty heavy on their ad placement. In fact, if I dare say, it looks like many (not all but many) of them were created with the sole purpose of generating AdSense or other ad income without necessarily benefiting the user.
Read more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fred-update-ad-heavy-low-value-23538.html
