If a website is engaged in suspicious methods to deceive search engines for a higher ranking, your site will be banned. Google sets its foot firm on the sites which manipulate the rankings. Google penalizes those sites and removes them from SERPs, and this process is called as “Google Slap.” Google changes its search algorithm 500-600 times a year, which comes around 1-2 times a day. Though most of these changes are minor, Google rolls out occasional major updates that significantly affects search results. Google’s most recent update was in September 2016, called “Penguin 4.0”. Penguin 4.0 update devalues spam by lowering the rank of that specific page rather than lowering rank of the entire website. Let’s look into each major Google algorithm updates:
1. Panda
Launch Date
24 Feb 2011
Hazards
Plagiarised, thin or duplicate content, keyword stuffing, user-generated spam.
How it Works
As per Panda algorithm, it assigned “Quality Score” to the web pages which is used as ranking factor. Initially, Panda was not a part of Google ranking algorithm; it was just a filer. But it was incorporated officially into core algorithm in. After Panda was incorporated, both penalties and recoveries were happening at faster rates.
How to Stay Safe
To prevent your site, you can run regular checks for plagiarism, thin and duplicate content, and keyword stuffing with the help of site crawler like SEO PowerSuite Website Auditor. For content duplication or plagiarism, you can use plagiarism checker like Grammerly.com or quetext.com.
2. Penguin
Launch Date
24th April 2012
Hazards
Irrelevant or spammy links, links with over-optimized anchor text, Paid links, links from sites that are purely for SEO link building.
How it Works
The main objective of Google’s Penguin algorithm was to de-rank websites with spammy and manipulative link profiles. Penguin is a part of Google’s core ranking algorithm since October 6, 2016.
How to Stay Safe
Monitor your link profile growth through SEO PowerSuite SEO SpyGlass. Google is not going to penalize you for one to two spammy links but take care of a sudden spike of toxic backlinks that could create a problem.Check your website regularly for penalty risks through SEO SpyGlass and its Penalty Risk formula.Remove request of spammy links by contacting the webmasters of the linking sites. Use Google’s Disavow tool to get rid of harmful links if you have a lot and cannot hear back from webmasters.
3. Pirate
Launch Date
August 2012
Hazards
Pirate content, high volume copyright infringement reports.
Objective
The main objective of the Pirate algorithm was to de-rank websites with copyright infringement reports. The majority of sites that got affected by this algorithm was the popular websites that made pirated content like movies, music, books, torrent sites etc. that are easily available to users.
How to Stay Safe
Do not share copyright content.
4. Hummingbird
Launch Date
22nd August 2013
Hazards
Keyword stuffing, and exact-match keyword targeting.
Objective
The primary goal was to produce more relevant search results by understanding the meaning behind queries.
How to Stay Safe
Expand your keyword research and focus on concepts, not keywords. Use Rank Tracker keyword research module to expand your keyword research. Use synonyms rather than exact keyword matches as Hummingbird adds more strength to the meaning behind the query rather than exact keyword or match.
5. Pigeon
Launch Date
24th July 2014
Hazards
Poor on and off page SEO.
Objective
Provide high quality, relevant local search results. Pigeon affects the searches which focus on user’s locations.
How to Stay Safe
Put effort in on-page and off-page SEO. You can use Website Auditor to run an on-page analysis for your web pages. Get the list of relevant business directories for off-page SEO. They will help you get backlinks, and get your site rank.
6. Mobile
Launch Date
21st April 2015
Hazards
Poor mobile usability, lack of a mobile version of a web page.
Objective
Mobile algorithm ensures the web pages to rank higher which supports mobile-friendly web pages. The web pages which are not optimized for mobile are filtered out from the SERPs or down-ranked.
How to Stay Safe
Create mobile-friendly web pages and focus on speed and usability. Use Website Auditor for running Google’s mobile-friendly test which will help you to see which aspects of your page’s mobile version need to be improved.
7. RankBrain
Launch Date
26th October 2015
Hazards
Poor User Experience, shallow content, lack of query-specific relevance features.
Objective
Aim is to deliver better search results based on relevancy and machine learning.
How to Stay Safe
Maximize user experience by keeping an eye on your web pages for user experience factors in Google Analytics particularly Bounce rate and Session Duration. RankBrain believed in identifying query-specific relevance features of web pages. So do competition research.
8. Possum
Launch Date
1st September 2016
Hazards
Sharing a physical address with a similar business, competitions in your target location.
Objective
Deliver more diverse results based on user’s search location and address.
How to Stay Safe
Do location-specific rank tracking and expand your keyword list. If you have a local business, then you have to target more keywords than what you are using due to the volatility brought into the local SERPs by Possum’s algorithm.
9. Fred
Launch Date
8th March 2017
Hazards
Heavy-affiliated, low quality, and ad-centered content web pages.
Objective
Filter out low quality, heavy-affiliated or ad-centered web pages.
How to Stay Safe
Watch out for thin-content by reviewing Google Search Quality Guidelines. If you solely depend upon ads then make sure to add high-quality, relevant and ample information.
