What Is A Google Update?
Every so often, Google changes the algorithm that they used to rank websites. These are known as Google updates. Just like any business that will refine their product or service overtime, Google constantly tweak their algorithm the problem is that these tweaks can affect a lot of people and businesses.
The Google Algorithm
The Google algorithm is said to consist of about two hundred elements. Whilst we don’t know what these are, there are some obvious elements to how websites get ranked including inbound links and correct ‘on page’ SEO elements.
Google make adjustments to the algorithm more than once a day. Whilst these changes are subtle and not noticed by most people, every now and then a major update will come up usually catching everyone by surprise.
Google Updates over the years
Here are some of the more important algorithm changes that have occurred over the years.
The Florida Update February 2003
This update targeted ‘keyword stuffing’ on webpages. The tactic of putting relevant keywords all over a page even though it didn’t make sense. This was one of the first major algorithms that hit business owners hard.
Social Signals December 2010
Skip forward to 2010 and Google now confirm that they are using social signals in their algorithm. That means the more likes, comments and retweets your social accounts get, the better rankings you should get.
Panda #1 February 2011
This update basically got rid of a lot of content firms, you might remember Ezines articles. They also derank websites that have a lot of ads on them and websites that were very thin on contents.
While this was going on Google brought out the Freshness (News) update on November 2011 and this basically rewarded sites that had recent or new content to put on their site.
Penguin April 2012
The first iteration of penguin. Basically, it is a web spam Google algorithm update. If you had too many links that were going to your homepage, and not to any other pages, you will hit.
If you have links that is going to your site with the same keyword, if you are trying to rank for Brisbane lawyer and you have Brisbane lawyer going to your site dozens of times because it just looks unnatural.
Exact Match Domain Update September 2012
Last but not the least, the This basically devalued Exact Match Domains from ranking well in Google. An example of this, if you’re searching Brisbane lawyers again, you might see a lot of businesses that have different domain names as opposed to their business name, so there was a law firm called Smith Lawyers and their website might be www.lawyerbrisbane.com.au.
So, is there update around the corner? There will be one coming soon, we don’t know when, but it will be coming, should you wait. If you’ve done everything right with your website, you’re confident that the people who’d worked on your site are using safe practices and you’ve got nothing to worry about, but if you’re unsure, then you should have it checked out by an expert and see that you’re still within Google’s guidelines.
At www.willmullins.com, all out SEO is manually done, it’s all handmade, there’s no automated, backlinking or spammy things going on.
SEO they say is all about content marketing and content creation, but as I said before with online marketing, you should not be relying on one channel, you should be relying on multiple channels, yes to organic SEO, but also do Google ads, Facebook ads, social media advertising, YouTube video marketing, it all helps.
If you’re in front of your customers in multiple places around the net, you have more chance of bringing them back to your website and back to your offer.
If you’ve got a questions about SEO to your website, just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to help you. If you’d like to leave a comment below, please do, it’s always good.
