GOOGLE ALGORITHMS SIMPLIFIED!

Google, the most popular search engine, has now become a very familiar term for not only the netizens and the internet savvy generation but also to the less exposed sections of population worldwide. If I talk of the present time, any naive internet user is very well acquainted to Google and knows pretty well how to search any query on it to the least. Any newbie who is under the process of getting the knack of how to use the internet, has the knowledge of Google and can search for a query easily. This is the magic of Google which has swept masses along with it. It is no more a search engine, but is on it’s way to become a wonder engine by working on it’s search strategies and algorithms.

After studying the latest trends, it would not be wrong to say that the word “Search” has been successfully replaced by “Google”. I myself in my daily life have experienced my fellow mates saying “Just Google the term”, instead of saying “Just search for the term”. And this very instance explains the mighty power and strength of Google and the trust it has planted in its users, in you and me, for itself which requires no further justification. This is really commendable.

But guys have you ever thought how Google manages it all?

Well, the answer to this question is my current blog.

The Algorithms on which Google is working, have really made about this revolution.

What are Algorithms actually?

Now, the real question which comes on the forefront is, what are Algorithms basically?

The answer to it is very simple, if I quote what Google said exactly, “You want the answer, not trillions of webpages. Algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you back exactly what you want.” 

The world is getting bigger day by day and so is the Web. But when you query Google, you are simply not bothered about the vastness of the web, the only thing which concerns you is the answer to your query, that too “Fast and to-the-point”. Suppose you want to know the name of the hero any of your favourite movie, let’s say you type in, “Actor in Rustom”, the answer you require is only “Akshay Kumar” and not the trillions of pages which may or may not have information relevant to your search.

Here is the need of Algorithms, which are computer programs, which help to provide you with the best matched answer to your query.

The whole process that supports your search query begins with crawling and indexing pages. Crawling in easier terms can be understood as simply scanning of the large number of webpages available. All the search engines have their own crawling bots or robots. Google’s crawling robot is known as “Google Bot”.

Now, the next question which might arise in your mind would be, what kind of algorithms are used by Google and what could be their working principle.

Let’s have a look at all the latest Google Algorithms one by one.

10 Algorithms that every Digital Marketer Must Know

 

1.Google Panda

Google Panda was launched in February 2011 and has been updated periodically since then to give best results to it’s users.

Basic idea behind the Algo :

To stop or prevent the Poor Quality Content sites to be displayed in Google’s top search results.

 Panda was aimed at blocking the “Content Farms”. As Google describes, Content farms are sites which possess very poor quality content, which is really shallow and can be irrelevant to the user’s search queries. At the same time the Algorithm also targeted the “Scraper Sites”. As the name implies, sites that simply scrape content from other sites and puts it on it’s webpages for the users. Scraping was a major threat to the originality of the content of the webpages. Bringing out original and unique content is one of the fundamental requirements put forth by Google to secure higher rankings. At the same time scraping might also prevent the sites with original content to make their way on the top search results of Google, which is unfair by all means.

Google in it’s official statement clearly described about it’s responsibility to encourage a healthy web eco system, where no evil exists. And thus, wanted to reward the sites with unique content with higher rankings in the search results and Panda has achieved this for Google.

 One thing was put straight by Google to all the online marketers that the key to higher ranking was only original relevant and unique content and not any malicious means. Good Quality content sites will be given higher and better rankings than the sites with poor quality and shallow content.

 What constitutes Good Quality Content?

• Originality
• Uniqueness
• Relevance
• In-depth information
• Easy navigation on the site
• User friendliness

All this sums up about what Google Panda is all about.

2.Google Penguin

Google Penguin was introduced in the year 2012. This algorithm further refined the notion of Good Quality Sites and the reward that Google wants to give them.

 

Basic idea behind the Algo:

The algorithm aims to remove webspam and block the sites which are engaged in the link network activities i.e buying links or obtaining them through link network activities.

 

As Google announced, penguin was launched to demotivate and decelerate the rankings of the sites that were deemed to be violating the Quality Guidelines laid by Google.

The major violations include:

Keyword Stuffing

As the name indicates quite clearly, when the content is stuffed with keywords in an unrestrained manner then it is termed as Keyword Stuffing. Such an act is often done by Black hat SEO experts to gain good Google Rankings. But according to Google itself, a very hyped usage of keywords which does not fulfills any purpose, but only to secure a better ranking, often produces a negative effect. This tactic can work against instead of working for such sites, and this is looked after Google Penguin. Overly stuffing your content with keywords produces irrelevant, repetitive and in-comprehensive matter, which is of no use to the users.

An example of keyword stuffing might look like this:

We make handmade cards. The handmade cards are customized, according to the purchaser who wants to buy handmade cards. Handmade cards are a good to gift your loved ones. Handmade cards are not very expensive.

Link Schemes

Sharing links with your friends and partners is often thought to be a good way to build reputation. But buying and selling links for this purpose, and being caught in link scheming activities is deemed to be a violation according to Google’s guidelines, and Penguin takes good care of it.

Earning links because of the originality and uniqueness in the content is fair and acceptable. So, I strongly suggest all of you, to beware of such practices as they can hinder your growth on Google’s search results and can bring your position down exponentially.

An example provided by Google looks like this:

“There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.”

Cloaking

Now, cloaking is also a punishable action. Cloaking can be understood as the act of presenting different content to the search engine at the time of crawling and a completely varied and different content when clicked by the user as a result of their search query.

 You can understand it better through an example, suppose a site presents cartoon characters to the search engines at the time of crawling, but when you click on the site, what you get to see on the page is entirely different to the subject of your relevance, it could be something like porn. And hence, the searched topic does not match with the results shown. This malicious act can severely bring down the Google rankings of the page.

Duplicate Content

As I have mentioned this point in all my blogs multiple number of times, “Content is King” and should always be original and unique.

Having duplicate content on your site can bring down your page rankings. Being true in your content is the only way to survive on Google’ rankings and also to make your way to the top results.

 And all these points make Penguin a very important algorithm for the marketers to have knowledge of. 

3. Google Hummingbird

Google Hummingbird was introduced in September 2013.

 Basic Idea behind the algo:

To take into consideration the semantics of the search query along with the keywords.

Google Hummingbird is considered to be one of the biggest and most important change in the history of Google Algorithms. The name of the algorithm culminates from the very characteristic of the Hummingbird i.e “Precise and Fast”.

The revolutionizing change that this algorithm brought was that it started taking into account the semantics of the search query. By semantics, I mean the “meaning” of the search query. After the advent of Hummingbird, not only the words individually but the sentence or phrase as a whole was taken into account, and then produced the search results. And therefore, it could produce more intelligent results. 

Another new feature which came to light with the algo was “Conversational Search”.

Along with it, one more amazing fact which accompanies the algo is that it does not affect SEO.

4. Google Pigeon

Google Pigeon was launched on July 24th, 2014.

Basic Idea behind the algo:

As the name of the algorithm goes “Pigeon”, you can easily think of this algorithm to be associated with the location and distance of the search results.

Google Pigeon provides relevant and precise Local Search Results and is even more glued with the traditional web search ranking signals. You all would have noticed the search results for the google web search and Google map search were often quite different, and now the Pigeon flies to bring in more cohesion between the two results. It has altered the results for better search.

Not only this, but the Local Review Sites like Urbanspoon, TripAdvisor etc. also witnessed a boost with the rise of Pigeon.

5.Google Payday Update

Google Payday Update was introduced on June 11, 2013.

Basic Idea behind the Algo:

Google payday update was aimed to clean up the search results for the traditional “Spammy Queries”.

 Google Payday update was initiated to identify and penalize the sites that use Search Engine spam techniques to improve their rankings for specific search queries that are considered “spammy” in nature.

But, what actually are spammy queries?

According to Google’s Blog Post, they describe spam as sites with low level of original content, or if I put the other way round, web spam can be thought of as keyword-stuffed websites and other “black hat” tactics to cheat Google to secure higher ranking in the search results.

Spammy content is anything present on the web which does not provide any new information and also does not give any distinct content to it’s readers to read.

 So, basically the Google Payday algorithm was formulated to filter out the low quality content websites that were using a variety of spam techniques to boost their rankings for heavily trafficked search key word queries like “payday loans,” “Viagra,” “casinos” and various pornographic terms.

6. Google Pirate Update

Google Pirate Update was introduced in August 2012.

 Basic Idea behind the Algo:

Google Pirate update was basically designed to prevent and penalize sites that breach the infringement copyrights or to put it in simple words, sites which provide pirated content.

The name of this update comes as a surprise, as it is not abstract in it’s meaning but very directly implies it’s basic purpose, unlike Panda, Penguin or Pigeon. Piracy is an issue which needs to be taken care of with immediate effect because it has gained grounds vastly. And Google, not involved in creating the pirated content, but is discharging and distributing it across the web and thus Pirate Update comes as a great step against piracy.

 If I try to put the whole picture in the simplest terms then, Google simply finds sites producing pirated content or content which violates the copyright act and lowers it’s ranking.

This Google update has brought a sigh of relief to many directors, producers and artists who have been bullied by the piracy world over and over again.

7.Google EMD(Exact Match Domain) Update

Google EMD update was launched in September 2012.

 Basic Idea behind the Algo:

The Google EMD update prevents sites that have their domain names matching to some popular search query keywords, having low quality content to rank higher in the Google listings.

Exact Match Domains in general can be explained as, domain names that possess exactly matching keywords as a website wants to compete for. For example, let us assume, if a website wants to rank for the term [ weather report], an exact match domain would be [WeatherReport.com]. 

Not to much surprise EMD’s made a lot of money, and were able to reach top listings also through this tool.

 Lets understand it better with an example:

There are some queries which are frequently searched by the users and hence they can be very useful domain names.

www.differencebetween.com

Now whenever the user types any query like difference between an alphabet and a word, the site mentioned above would definitely make it’s way to top search results, irrespective of it’s relevance to the query. When you click on the link what you find there is, just a keyword stuffed site having very low quality content.

This menace is curbed by Google’s EMD update.

 8.Google Top Heavy Update

Google’s Top Heavy was launched in January 2012.

Basic Idea behind the algo:

Top Heavy update is targeted to prevent sites which provide a topping to their webpages by heavily flooding them with ads, and thereby, lower their ranking in the listings.

 You guys might also have experienced sites which are overly stuffed with ads and do not provide the relevant and useful content for which you are in search of. When you click on such a site, what you get to see is ads in galore. The content is usually covered with ads and therefore you cannot find it easily. And sometimes there is no or very little content which is relevant to the search and instead is loaded with huge number of ads.

 This problem is addressed by Google through it’s Top Heavy Update. Although Google has not cleared anything about how many ads will be considered over the top, but still the key to good ranking remains original content with relevance to the search query.

9. Google Mobile Friendly Update

Google Mobile Friendly Update was released on April 21, 2015.

Basic Idea behind the algo:

The algorithm supports the sites that have gone mobile friendly and in turn will be rewarded with higher listings on Google.

Your search device is now no more important to load a heavy site which bears your relevant result, but what remains important is your query only.

Sometimes searching with mobiles became cumbersome, because some heavy sites were difficult to load on mobile devices. But now, Google has rolled out this algorithm clearly propelling the sites to go Mobile Friendly.

If the site has already geared up for mobile friendliness, then this algorithm brings a good news for them as they would be rated higher than their non mobile friendly counterparts.

Whatever it may be, Google always presents a win-win situation for it’s users.

10.Google Adwords update

The latest update to roll on the floor is Google’s Adwords update in 2016.

 Basic Idea behind the algo:

Google has updated it’s top ad block to include 4 ads on the SERP. Previously 1-3 ads were displayed at the top ad block of the SERP, but after the Adwords update Google has altered the number of ads to be four.

Disappearance of Right Column Ads

This is another alteration that Google has come up with. Right-hand column ads were initially shifted to the bottom-left position of the SERP and then finally disappeared completely.

And you are entirely correct to guess that this move of Google is to support the Mobile Friendly design of their SERP. As it is difficult for the mobile users to navigate and see the right column ads, Google has removed them and instead increased the number of ads to four on the top ad block.

 

These are the 10 algorithms that are a “Must Know” for every individual interested in SEO.

Hope these algorithm updates have helped you to develop a better insight about Google’s ranking factors.