Google is always searching and updating its search algorithms approximately every three months in order to ensure good quality search results. If you have a personal blog or a website then you need not worry about these updates, but if you run a SEO agency or business (purely e-commerce based firm) and that relies on traffic from search engines, then you have to be updated even about small news that comes from Google.
Some of the latest SEO updated by Google are as follows:
- Google Penguin
Google Penguin is an algorithm update that rolled out on 24th April, 2012. The main purpose behind this update is to lower down the ranking of the websites that use black hat SEO techniques like Keyword Stuffing, Cloaking, using duplicate content etc. A Penguin update resulted in a dramatic change in the search industry. People who were hit by Google Penguin sent reconsideration requests through webmaster tools. However, Google announced the change to an algorithmic change, and was an automatic penalty rather than a manual penalty. This is the primary reason why reconsideration wouldn’t help in the penguin case. However, 2 days after the penguin release, Google introduced a Penguin feedback form where reports could be monitored. Researchers found out that the reason behind the rank loss was due to the type of unnatural backlinks which people generally use like:
2. Google Panda Update 3.8
On 25th June, 2012 Google released a new update to the previous algorithm; Google Panda. As per Google on Twitter this update will affect around 1% of worldwide queries. Earlier, on 8th June Panda got an update, and Google explained this by saying they just gave a data refresh then again ran the algorithm.
Everyone thought that this was a new update in Google Panda but it was not. Otherwise webmasters must have cried after watching new results.
It wasn’t easy for anyone to digest the penguin update because ranking had changed from first page to 500+. But no matter what happens with the website owners, Google will keep on updating its algorithm for quality results. The picture below signifies what we actually have to do in SEO:
So it is better to be updated about the latest Google updates and play smart and never use ‘spam’ to get huge backlinks because in the end some polar animal will destroy your ranking just like Panda or Penguin did in the past.