Google Search Key Updates From 2020-2022: Bert, MUM, GA4 Lens, AI, and much more.

I want to start this blog by thanking you all for the support you've given over the last few months. It has been exciting to write this series and read your feedback. Along the journey I've received several messages about features or changes not included in my writings that have led to interesting conversations. Moving forward, I will be publishing weekly articles about current news, changes to the search engines, AI, marketing, SEO, and other digital related topics. With that being said let's jump into Googles search changes from 2020 - 2023.

2020

In January, Google rolled out an update to its search algorithm called Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). This update was designed to help Google better understand the context and intent behind search queries, particularly for longer and more conversational queries. This update impacted around 10% of all search queries.

In March, Google launched a COVID-19 search experience that provided users with up-to-date information on the pandemic. The search experience included a dedicated tab with news, safety tips, and local resources for each user's specific location.

In May, Google announced that it would be adding a new set of ranking signals called the Page Experience Update, which would focus on user experience signals such as page load times, interactivity, and visual stability. This update was initially scheduled for May 2021 but was later postponed to June 2021.

In October, Google announced a new update called "Passage Indexing" that would allow the search engine to index individual passages within a page, rather than just the entire page. This update was designed to help users find more specific answers to their queries and improve the overall accuracy of search results.

Also in October, Google introduced Google Analytics 4. GA4 is an event-based measurement platform with deeper integration than Universal Analytics with Google Ads. GA4 does not use cookies and has cross-device measurement capabilities. Because GA4 does not track IP addresses, you no longer have to worry about privacy regulations for your industry or countries with privacy laws.

In December, Google rolled out another Core Update. This update was a broad update that impacted a wide range of search queries and search results. While Google did not provide specific guidance on how to optimize for this update, it advised webmasters to continue focusing on delivering high-quality content and providing a good user experience.

2021

In February, Google announced an update called "Passage Ranking," which would help Google better understand the relevance of specific passages within a page. This update was designed to help Google deliver more accurate and specific results to users, particularly for longer queries.

In April, Google rolled out a Product Reviews update that aimed to reward websites that provide comprehensive, in-depth, and unbiased reviews of products. This update was designed to help users find high-quality product reviews that they could trust.

In June, Google rolled out its Page Experience Update. This update included the Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure how quickly a page loads, how easy it is to interact with, and how stable it is during use. This update also included the previously announced signals such as mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.

In July, Google announced a spam update that would help improve the quality of search results by cracking down on spammy websites. This update was designed to target websites that used tactics such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link schemes to manipulate search rankings.

In September, Google announced another spam update that would crack down on low-quality content and spammy websites. This update was designed to improve the overall quality of search results and provide users with more relevant and trustworthy information.

In December, Google released a product review update that was far more extensive than almost any other update for over 8 months, targeting product review content. This update led to massive changes in rankings for some of the highest-traffic pages on top keywords.

Google MUM (Multitask Unified Model) is introduced in 2021. Google MUM is a new AI-powered technology that allows Google to understand search queries in a much more sophisticated way. It is designed to handle multiple languages, formats, and tasks at once. MUM can understand images, text, and even video to provide more accurate and relevant results to users. MUM also can generate its own questions and answer them, which is a significant step forward in the field of natural language processing. Google has stated that MUM is 1,000 times more powerful than its predecessor, BERT. It can process 75 different languages and understand 75 different tasks, including summarization, translation, and question-answering. Mum had the ability to understand complex queries and provide more comprehensive results.

2022

Google had it's regular core updates but the big news is the full rollout of MUM's. This new AI-powered language model is designed to handle complex tasks that require multiple steps to complete. MUM can understand multiple languages and can provide users with more comprehensive and accurate results than ever before. MUM was the biggest update since Bert in 2019.

Google posted this update in March 2022 - “Now, using our latest AI model, MUM, we can automatically and more accurately detect a wider range of personal crisis searches. MUM can better understand the intent behind people’s questions to detect when a person is in need, which helps us more reliably show trustworthy and actionable information at the right time. We’ll start using MUM to make these improvements in the coming weeks."

In addition to MUM, Google also introduced several other updates to improve search accuracy and speed. Another important update was to the Google Passage Ranking algorithm. This algorithm allows Google to understand the context of individual passages within a web page, rather than just the overall content. This means that Google can provide users with more accurate and relevant results, even if the search query is complex or ambiguous.

In October, Google announced the SpamBrain update, which helps fight manipulative behaviors that narrowly avoid violating quality guidelines. One example is detecting whether product reviews are just rewritten product descriptions or genuinely hands-on reviews.

In December, Google improved its classifier, which now works across all languages. This update promotes more original, helpful content written by people, for people, rather than content made primarily for search engine traffic.

Also in December, Google started using their AI-based spam-prevention system, SpamBrain, to detect sites buying links or passing outgoing links. This update is global and affects all languages.

2023

Moving into 2023, Google has already announced several new updates and improvements to its search engine. One of the most significant of these updates is the introduction of Google Lens integration. Google Lens is a visual search tool that allows users to search for information using photos or screenshots. With this new integration, users will be able to take a photo of an object or location and receive relevant search results based on the image.

Another important update coming in 2023 is the introduction of Google's new "Page Experience" algorithm. This algorithm considers factors such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, and security when ranking pages in search results. Websites that provide a better user experience will be rewarded with higher search rankings.

Google announced plans on making changes to improve it's voice search. These improvements will make it easier for users to perform searches using voice commands, even in noisy or crowded environments. With the new emphasis on voice, SEO professionals will have to analyze the changes and adapt their strategies to stay optimized. As more and more people have voice search devices in their homes, I expect these changes to have a more significant impact on our SERP moving forward.

2020 – 2023 in Summary

These are just a few of the most significant Google Search updates. 2023 is going to be an exciting year with the introduction of new AI-powered language models, improved search accuracy and speed, and new tools for website owners and users. It's also going to be exciting because Microsoft has come out swinging with the development and deployment of their new search AI on Bing.