Most Significant Updates of Google

                                       GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATE

                                                  

In my previous post, we just peeped into the history and evolution of Google.

To improve the user's trust and quality of websites, Google updated the algorithms. Let's check some important updations of google.

1. Google Panda Update (February 2011):

  

                                      
By SEO Starter Guide, webmasters make to change to their websites to get a higher ranking in google search results, so Google benefited a lot. But it leads to content spamming and content spinning. Content spamming means spammy or plagiarized content. People inserted or stuffed keywords wherever they could.

So the Google Panda Update arrived. This update targeted content spammers. Thin pages (webpages having content with very less or no quality), webpages which were content farmed or had duplicated content was completely removed from Google listings.

The Panda or Farmer Update became a filter for all websites. Each website which successfully passed these filters or met the terms and conditions of the website was crawled, cached and indexed by Google. A website that did not pass these filters was merely crawled and cached but never indexed.

 2. The Penguin Update (April 2012):

                                                   

This updation is against link spamming. Which website have more links from an outside website, it will be ranked first. People generated links to their website from other websites and also started buying(link exchange) and selling(paid links) links.

Webpages that were awarded a Page Rank by Google were considered the best websites to obtain links from. This resulted in a competitive distribution of links by owners of websites having higher Page Rank. Several websites and webpages were launched by the same owner under one host server, solely for the purpose of link building.
The Penguin Update was mainly focused to  attack such link spammers. Google not support the selling of paid links as well as getting links from websites that carried out spamming activities.

They also avoided the website which had doorway pages, i.e., websites which had less or no content. Under this update, websites that had quality links, as well as links with trusted websites, had higher positions in Google listings.

3. The Pigeon Update (July 2014):

                                                
This update was related to local SEO, that is, providing location-based search engine results. It's not a punishment update. Google attempted delivering results based on the location of the IP address, from which the query was coming from. For example, if someone in New York searched for "Restaurants", Google would return his queries with restaurants based in New York, not in Washington or some other place.
Additionally, Geo-tagging or the adding of your location on Google Maps and showing the same on your website was also required.
Websites started to list their business on Google for local visibility, which was verified by a PIN number sent via post to the registered address. The important thing is to submit the website to the open directories online, such as the Yellow Pages.

 4. The Hummingbird Update (2013): 

                               

This update focused on semantic search results. The search engine listings on the basis of the user activity, time spent on a website, the age, educational qualifications and the economic status of the search engine users, Google's special cookies or Spy-bots are used to track this.

 5. Rankbrain Update (2015): 

                                        
An extension to the Hummingbird algorithm, the Rankbrain update uses artificial intelligence or AI to process search engine results as per the human needs. This update uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) for tracking the user's needs based on their age group, individual preferences, and their recent searches even on websites other than Google.

6.EMD Update or the Exact Match Domain Update (September 2012):

This update was aimed to prevented low-quality websites from ranking high on Google just because they had their domain name exactly matching with search engine user terms. This update also removed those new websites which were not able to achieve Page Rank, in a given time period.

7. The Pirate Update (August 2012):

It is a filter that was introduced for the purpose of protecting the website owner's rights on copyrighted content. This update prevented websites that infringed on the copyrights of other users' digital content or digital properties. The victim was able to file a complaint about the infringement under DMCA (Digital Millenniums Copyright Act) under Google, after which Google would verify the exact owner and disable the duplicate website from appearing on search engine results.

8.The Mobilegeddon Update(2015):

The update arrived due to increasing search using mobile phones. The update launched for making the websites mobile friendly and viewing of websites comfortably on mobile phones, without having to tap or zoom. Websites that weren't mobile-friendly would be pushed down in Search Engine Rankings or would not be shown in the search engine results page in mobile phones.

9.Parked Domain Updation(April 2012)

It depends on what kind of parking you are referring to, if you talk about a sales lander similar to Undeveloped's then no, you won't necessarily lose any SEO that has been made on the domain as undeveloped provides both https and a customized description which will get indexed.

Hope you understood the updations of Google. Comment your queries.
To know more about the history and evolutions of Google, please check my previous blog post.
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