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Google Algorithm Updates and Changes 1998-2013 [Infographic]

Google Panda UpdateGoogle is most popular search engine at the time of writing and many online businesses depends on Google Algorithm. Google algorithm is the set of rules and expressions which determine how a webpage will rank in Google. In simple word, when you search for any query “SEO changes”, this algo will decide the placement of search results. For any online business and Bloggers, it’s important to keep an eye on Google algorithm updates and changes.
Google is one of the search engines that change their algorithm so much that sometimes it is hard for people to keep up with the updates and stay current. The most obvious reason for these frequent changes is the fight against spammers and black hat SEO techniques.
Most of the changes are minor but each year there are about 500-600 hundred of them. There are also bigger algorithmic updates that Google launches every few months. The infographic shows in a very interesting way how much the algorithm has changed since Google was first launched.
Some of these big updates include the “caffeine update”, the “Panda farmer”, the query encryption and much more. So far, SEO gurus have been able to keep their heads above the water, although Google makes sure this task gets harder every time. In the infographic you will find out what all of these minor and major Google updates did and how they affected the SEO world.

Google Algorithm Updates – Panda Updates

Google Algorithm Updates
Click on image to see large view. Latest Google Panda (3.8 update) happened on June 26th 2012 and latest Google penguin update happened on May 27th 2012..
People who are seeing significant traffic drop in last 1 year, they should keep an eye on following Google panda updates date:

GOOGLE PANDA UPDATE TIMELINE:

Now, Google algorithm update is happening every month, where Google all changes they have made in recent algo update. Google panda update happened on above mentioned dates which is one of the most prominent Google algo change which happened in last few years. On Feb 23, 2011, when Google panda launched , it affected 12% of search engine results and kicked many of the player out of outline  business, although it helped many at the same time.
Google freshness update was another major change last year, which helped to bring recent & updates pages at the top. Anyhow, if your website is affected by Panda updates, you should check out this guide: How to recover from Google panda.
Now, one thing which is clear in 2012 and in coming year, social signals and your network is going to be one big factor for ranking. My suggestion would be, stay active on Google+ and create Google+ page for your Website and Business. Google authorship is another thing, which I highly recommend you to implement, as author trust factor is going to be another game changer in coming days.
Instead of making changes n your site, after every Google panda update & Google algorithm update, my suggestion would be create a quality and helpful site. Take care of all the factors which includes on-Site SEO, Keyword research, On-Page SEO, Link building, Social media promotion, website usability, website design and so on.

Why People Hate SEO

Every few months, someone seems to attack search engine optimization. SEOs are often quick to rise in defense of their profession. I’ve done that plenty myself, in the past. But a barrage of recent cold-call SEO pitches in my inbox even has me hating SEO.
Of course, I don’t really hate SEO. That’s because I know the difference between:
  • SEO and search engine spam
  • SEO and snake-oil promises
SEO remains the act of gaining free traffic from search engines, and also to me, gaining that traffic in ways that don’t put you at risk of being banned or penalized by those search engines. It’s a perfectly acceptable activity that even the search engines encourage. That’s why Google itself offers a guide to SEO.

White Hat, Black Hat & No Hat SEO

 Search engine spam, to me, isn’t SEO. Some who practice it may disagree. “Black Hat SEO” to them remains SEO. Just because they don’t want to follow the rules a search engine puts down doesn’t mean they aren’t doing SEO.
OK, then we have two types of SEO, “white hat” and “black hat.” And it’s black hat SEO alone that cause all the problems, right? Nope. That’s because you’ve also got some supposed “white hats” who don’t violate any rules but also don’t actually provide any SEO value. Let’s call them “no hats.”

The No Hat Pitch

I’m pretty sick of no hat SEOs. That’s because they send me crud like this:
The end of the year is quickly approaching, which means holidays, parties, family, friends, and a lost chance to save money on search engine marketing, Website Designing/Development.
We saved the best promotion for the end of the year! ONLY $50!! HuRRy UP!!
Search Engine Optimization. Love your website? Save initial SEO setup fee and see your website on first page of search engines.
No Black-hat methods.
Take a trial for just $50 and get linked with 100 quality websites having page rank up to 5.
Our team works directly with you to meet our target which is #1 position on search engines. We sincerely believe that the above services will merit with the requirements of your Organization
I’m pretty sure spending $50 will do absolutely nothing for me or anyone using this firm. Maybe they’ll somehow place 100 links on the web, and maybe, just maybe, they really will do it without “black hat” methods.
But those links probably won’t really give my site any benefit. What’s the anchor text going to be? If it’s the same for each page, going up all at the same time, might that trigger someunnatural link warning from Google? And even with low cost labor being used, $50 simply doesn’t cover the necessary time to understand what a site is about, to research other sites and then engage in communication to obtain quality links.

Another No Hat Pitch

Here’s another, sent to me and all the Marketing Land editors through our contact form:
I thought you might like to know some of the reasons why you are not getting enough organic & social media traffic on your website.
I would like to update you that your website is still not ranked on the top pages of Google SERPs for your popular keywords (Products). Your loss is your competitor’s gain i.e. the traffic which could have generated quality sales for you goes to your competitors as they rank well in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) organically. Reasons:
  1. HTML and other on-page errors are present on your website.
  2. Low number of internal and external quality links present on your website.
  3. Duplicate or low quality contents present in your website without any regular update.
  4. Need to update fresh contents on your website and blogs as per the latest Google guideline.
  5. Broken Links and Poison words might be present in your website.
  6. Social media profile needs to be updated regularly.
Long gone are the days when Google used to give priority to websites of keyword based domains or websites with huge number of links. Now Google counts each and every detail to verify if your website is relevant to the keywords you are promoting for. A single un-wanted link or a duplicate content can lead your website to be penalized by Google.
We are a leading website promotion company providing online promotion, SMO, Reputation Management, Content (both web and promotional content) fixing services to clients.
We have a team of 240+ SEO professional working 24*7. Our team of dedicated Google Analytic and Adwords certified professionals excel in promoting and increasing the visibility of a website in various search engines (including the latest Google Panda and Penguin updates), which will directly help in increasing traffics for your website.
Unlike other SEO companies we do not believe in talking rather we believe in delivering what we promise to our clients. We provide guaranteed services or money back-guarantee to all our clients who consider working with us.
If you are getting rigid by paying a huge amount in PPC then Organic listing by using white hat technique will be definitely a right choice for you. As the rate of conversion is more in organic listing as compared to PPC, eventually it will be an absolute gain for you.
This email just tells you the fraction of things we do, our optimization process involves many other technical factors which can be sent to you on your request. If you would like to know more about our services then please write us back else you can give us a call us in our number below.
The email is crap right from the first sentence, given that the person sending this has no idea what keywords are important to our site.
The itemization of problems isn’t correct, but then again, neither is some of the grammar in the itemization. But some people might believe this, in the way they might believe someone pitching an unnecessary product to remove mold in their home or to prevent a car from developing rust.
If this company really does have a team of certified Google Analytics and Google AdWords people, I’d hope Google would pull those certifications, which mean nothing in terms of guaranteeing SEO results. It’s like saying you have a team of certified carpenters and electricians who are going to try and fix your plumbing problems.

The Terrible Public Faces Of “SEO”

Pitches like these cause some people to hate SEO simply because they’re so so damn annoying. Others end up hating SEO because they’re taken in and waste their money on something they thought was SEO but wasn’t. Either way, it’s not a pretty public face that some associate with SEO.
This leads to what I’ve called crap hat SEO. Crap hat SEO produces the second terrible public face that people see.

Crap Hat SEO

A crap hat SEO doesn’t give a damn about anything. They may be generating hundreds or thousands of pages of nonsensical copy using software, then using more software to comment spam the hell out of sites and pretty much not caring about what type of mess they leave behind, as long as they rank.
And mess it is. Publishers who own those comment spammed sites have to deal with the garbage, and they blame the damn “SEOs” for causing it. You also have some searchers who encounter junk pages that don’t really deliver what they’re looking for eventually realize there’s this “SEO thing” that screwed everything up.

The SEO Reputation Problem

I wish I had an easy solution for these things, but I don’t. What I can say is that SEO is not alone among industries where some bad actors can give the entire profession a terrible reputation.
For example, anyone who’s ever taken out a home loan knows that in the following weeks, you’ll get inundated with “official letters” of all types, stamped “time sensitive” or “important notice” and sounding authoritative by listing your loan balance or lender.
These pitches for insurance policies or refinancing offers are crap, public facing crap that give the insurance and mortgage industries a bad name.
But both industries provide necessary services, and there are good people and companies in those industries. That’s why they continue on, and it’s why SEO continues on despite every few months someone writing an article declaring that it’s going to die.

The Attack & Response Pattern

I pretty much stopped responding to those types of articles back in 2011. After I’d written things like these:
What else was there to say? And that’s just a sampling. I’d written many more articles on this topic stretching back into the late 1990s.
In the end, I decided to generally ignore articles that are often written by people who really don’t understand what SEO is about. In the past, I might have fired up a 3,000 word response to such things. Now, at best, I might leave a comment.
Someone on Forbes wants to declare SEO will be dead in two years? It’s not worth the effort. Anyone with any real knowledge of the SEO space knows that’s absurd. And anyway, it’s not a real Forbes writer. It’s just one what I call Fake Forbes writers, where that publication that had a name that once meant something now seems to let anyone write anything for page views.
Some designer wants to warn the world against why a good designer is all you need for SEO? Hey, I was heartened to see Bill Slawski and Will Critchlow step up with a response. But how many times do we have to do this? Wasn’t 2004 enoughHow about 2009? Does it have to always repeat? Why on earth doesn’t anyone gripe about how the development and design industries continue to fail to get SEO over and over again?
Well, part of it is that bad designers and bad developers aren’t crapping all over the web in ways that are easily seen and pinned to those industries. You encounter a bad web site. You blame the site, or a code error, not the people that created it, who aren’t associated with those annoying emails you get.
Part of it is also due to the fact that plenty of designers and developers do get SEO, get the need to either understand it and use best practices themselves or work with actual professional SEOs who do.

Education Does Help

And part of it is that yes, I suppose the wheel will keep having to go around and around, that education will always be needed. Personally, I’ll likely continue to ignore the flare-ups from places that don’t deserve attention. But in places where education might indeed help, maybe the good fight continues to be worth waging.
Along these lines, it would be nice if the largest industry body associated with SEO, SEMPO, actually seemed to be doing some of that outbound education when these flare-ups happen rather than individual SEOs themselves having to step forward.
Education won’t stop the crap that’s out there, of course. But maybe it will help people understand how to distinguish the crap they assume is SEO from the real SEO that is beneficial. Maybe it will help the professionals who provide quality SEO get more of the respect they deserve.
One thing I know. Bad reputation or not, SEO has continued on despite 15 years now of people declaring it will die. I fully expect it’ll keep going for another 15 years, if not many more.

Are You Too Dependent On Google Traffic?


Google IndependenceBetween all the new Google updates such as Penguin update and the constant Panda updates. Let's not forget the EMDPage Layout and DMCA updates - many online businesses have found themselves without traffic, customers and without the ability to pay rent.
Many of these sites depended almost 95% on Google traffic to get their visitors and ultimately their customers. When Google updates their algorithms, which they do fairly often, you are at risk of losing your business.
We've, as many people, have been preaching this for years. You should not solely rely on Google traffic to fuel your business. You need other channels for visitors, customers and to make a living.
WebmasterWorld thread talks just about that.
Either find other traffic sources or customer acquisition sources or your are setting yourself up to be in big trouble. All major businesses look to diversify their businesses. You should also.
Examples include building out mobile apps, looking for social traffic and some old fashion word of mouth. Some people have day jobs and work on their web sites as secondary jobs. Some people have multiple web sites in totally different niches.
What do you do to diversify your online business income? How dependent are you on Google traffic?
Here are the traffic sources for this site:
traffic sources
I bet my Google traffic percentage would be a lot higher if I wasn't so stubborn but hey - maybe I am being proactive about diversifying my traffic? Just kidding.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google algorithm updates affect search

Brooke Snow

As with many companies, Google likes to name its algorithm updates. This is where our friends Panda and Penguin come in. While the names insinuate something cute and cuddly, these updates are anything but. The goal of any algorithm update is to help get the end user good information that matches their needs. The main goal of Panda is to penalize sites with low quality content such as thin and duplicate content. Penguin is more focused on a site’s overall credibility and is aimed at penalizing spam sites, such as ones with unnatural inbound links. Panda and Penguin have endless versions (as of 21 November, we are at Panda update No. 22), and Google updates the algorithm 500 times to 600 times a year. You can see a list of updates by year on SEOmoz.
There are a couple key things that will help you determine if your site was hit.
1. You may have received a warning from Google Webmaster Tools (if you don’t have this set up for your hotel site, you need to). If you received the warning below, then you may have been hit by Penguin.
2. Analyze your traffic and impressions in Google Analytics as well as Google Webmaster Tools. If you see a drop on any of the major update days, you may have been hit.

Dates to look at:
  • Original Panda: 19 April 2012
  • Original Penguin: 24 April 2012
  • Panda Refresh: 27 April 2012
How to Panda and Penguin proof your site?
If your site was fortunate to not be hit by the major Google algorithm updates, then your next move should be to make sure you take extra steps to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. Below are some key things you can do to proof your site against Panda and Penguin.
Ways to protect your site against Penguin:
Remember some sites were hurt by Panda because the content on their site was too thin, which ultimately created a poor user experience that was identified through a lack of engagement and slow site load times. Here’s what you should do:
  • Ensure your site is designed for a good user experience and doesn’t inhibit engagement
  • Key metrics to look at to determine engagement:
    • Bounce rate (aim for around 30% to 40%)
    • Average time on site (aim for 3 minutes to 4 minutes on site)
    • Number of pages viewed per visit (aim for 4-plus pages)
    • Conversion rates (aim for 2% to 5%)
  • Make sure your site doesn’t load too slowly. You can get good insights into your sites current load speed as well as suggestions to increase it with Google’s page speed tool.
  • Going back to elementary school days, spelling and grammar are important. Head of Google’s Web spam team, Matt Cutts has stated that more reputable sites tend to spell better than lower quality sites.
  • Quality, quality, quality. Make sure your content is unique and worth reading.
Ways to protect your site against Penguin:
Sites were hurt by Penguin due to poor links; so were sites with too many footer links, links from unrelated sites and too many links with exact match anchor text. Here’s what you can do:
  • Remove any unrelated or links with very low quality.
  • Build links to your site that are higher quality and come from relevant sites (an example of a relevant site would be one themed around travel or hospitality).
  • Make sure you have varied anchor text for links coming to your site.
  • Use internal linking sparingly. Don’t add a link to another page on your site unless it would be helpful to the user.
  • Tool tip: Google Webmaster Tools now offers disavow links, which provides the ability to have Google count low-quality links when assessing your site. (Note: Be careful and make sure you know what you’re doing before utilizing this tool.)
What does all this mean for your website?
As Google continues to fine tune the algorithm to ensure the most relevant sites are returned for a user’s query, it will be essential to create website content that is focused on the user and not search engines.
Some key things to avoid:
  • Don’t automatically generate content. Make sure if you are creating new content, you make it as unique as possible. For example, rather than using the same basic content for new hotel packages and just changing a few words here and there, make sure you create descriptions that are as unique as the offering.
  • Avoid any tricks that are intended to improve rankings, such as keyword stuffing a page or using hidden text or links.
  • Don’t participate in any link schemes or use bulk link-building services. If you keep your site user focused and honest, you should have no problems with being penalized by any Pandas or Penguins in the future.
Brooke Snow joined the SEO world and Anvil Media, Inc. back in 2010. As a digital analyst at Anvil, Brooke is responsible for the creation and execution of various client online marketing strategies, specializing in Local SEO as well as in various industry verticals including hospitality and education. As an alum of the University of Oregon School of Journalism with a major in Advertising Brooke started her career at more traditional advertising agencies managing client work ranging from interactive web projects to print and collateral.

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of HotelNewsNow.com or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Columnists published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Pl