If you notice a sudden drop in traffic and rankings while looking at your site statistics, you might’ve been bitten (or clawed) by one of those beasts.
Which one? That depends on what you’ve been doing with your site.
Too much of something or not enough of something different – Google algorithm updates cover a lot of ground.
Let’s look at seven of the biggest Google algorithm updates of all time.
Google Panda
This algorithm update is the most likely to strike you.Google Panda evaluates websites based on the quality of their content.Pages with high-quality content are rewarded with higher ranking positions, and vice versa.
What triggers the Panda?
Thin content. This doesn’t necessarily mean content with too few words. Need a demonstration? Type “is it Christmas?” in Google’s search bar and see what’s ranking first. The site checks the date and then just says Yes or No in your local language. I won’t encourage you to be laconic like a Spartan, though. When you create content, make sure it provides an explicit answer to the user’s search query.
Low-quality content. This means content that hurts you to even look at it, let alone read. Poorly formatted text with grammar errors, huge or otherwise distracting images, design that negatively affects a user’s experience – anything you suspect will rub users the wrong way, will. Their visit to your site should be enjoyable.
Unhelpful, untrustworthy content. The kind that doesn’t help the users who found it or causes outright harm. Google has no tolerance for incompetence and con artistry. Strive to be a positive force.
Duplicate text. It’s often referred to as “duplicate content”, but Panda really only frowns upon copied chunks of text. Images are fair game. Videos are fair game (except on YouTube). Text is where you should be careful. It’s OK to reuse small bits of text as quotes – if you properly mark them as quotes in context. Reusing text and passing it off as your original work, is a no-go. Do that on enough pages to hamper the quality of your site, and Panda will take action.
Article spinning. This refers to attempts to avoid issues with duplicate content by rewriting text from another site. Unfortunately for those who try it, good content also needs to be original, and spinning often lowers the content’s quality as well (especially if you automate the process with software).
Google Penguin
This is the second algorithm update most likely to hit you. Penguin has a lot in common with Panda, but it evaluates websites for a different factor: their link profiles. Backlinks positively affect a site’s rankings if:
Important note: Google Penguin is not the same as Google’s manual actions for unnatural linking. Penguin is completely automatic and will let its grip on your site when unnatural backlinks are no longer a factor. To deal with a manual action, you’ll need to submit a reconsideration request in addition to purging those links.
What triggers the Penguin?
Buying links. It’s a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to acquire links that pass PageRank in exchange for money or products.
Lack of anchor text diversity. Text inside backlinks is another factor affecting the quality of your link profile. If this text is the same everywhere, it will look to Google like an attempt to manipulate your rankings.
Low quality of links. A backlink will set Penguin off if the content surrounding it is low-quality or contextually irrelevant to the linked page. You can’t always control who links to you, but you should do all you can to get rid of links that harm you.
Keyword stuffing. Surprise! You’d think this would be Panda’s territory, since keywords are on-page content. But Penguin also watches for an unnatural use of keywords. Have you ever encountered pages with long, near-meaningless sentences filled with dozens of search queries? That’s what keyword stuffing looks like at its worst.
Google Pigeon
If you’ve ever dabbled in local SEO, you most likely know about the ranking factors involved in it.But did you know Google uses them in a separate search algorithm?
Two algorithms – one for traditional web search, the other for local search. Such a divided approach returned less than ideal search results. An update was needed to make the two algorithms cooperate better, and so it was made.
What lies in post-Pigeon SEO?
There isn’t much you can do about the distance between your business and the user. But to attract the users who are close enough, there’s everything in your power to help your site appear higher in search.
Google Hummingbird
Unlike Panda and Penguin, the purpose of Google Hummingbird wasn’t to change how websites are ranked – at least not as directly.
Hummingbird aimed to improve search itself: by interpreting the user intent behind a query, it made the algorithm return webpages that would be the most qualified for the task. The context around keywords became just as important as the keywords.
The key lies in understanding what exactly users want to find when searching online.
Most of the time it’s obvious, especially if the query is in the form of a question. Provide answers in your content and be generous with details, synonyms, and contextually related words.
Google Payday Loan
Payday Loan shares a few things in common with Google Panda and Google Penguin, but it’s not to be confused with them. It’s a separate update in its own right. It rolled out in 2013 when Google decided to drain the swamp of pornographic, casino, and high interest loan sites.
This update was straightforward and simple. It targeted sites using high-risk SEO methods (such as spammy links) to rank for the above mentioned keywords: sites with pornographic content, high-interest loan sites, casino sites and so on.
Google Mobile-Friendly update (Mobilegeddon)
One fine day with a boom and a blur, an update rolled out and it caused a little stir. Despite the scary name it received from SEO pros, sites didn’t crash and burn.
All Google did was introduce a new mobile search ranking factor: the user experience quality when viewed on small screens.
Such an innovation was spurred by a significant increase in the number of searches being conducted on mobile devices. Google had a hunch we were were heading toward a mobile-first world – and was completely right. The need to adapt their search algorithm for devices other than PCs was justified.
Google Fred
Fred is Legion, for they are many. Fred is all those minor updates to Google’s search algorithm that are made every day. However, one of those unnamed updates proved to be bigger and more troublesome than most, so this entry will be about this one particular Fred.
What triggers the Fred?
Aggressive advertisement. Fred helped websites that emphasized content over ad revenue, which is why users visit websites in the first place.
Thin, low-value content. If users could find better content elsewhere, Fred shared the sentiment and promptly rewarded the more worthy websites.
Poor user experience. Fred wasn’t picky about the methods of disrupting UX. If a site had popups covering the entire screen, wasn’t optimized for mobile, or had a user-unfriendly navigation, the outcome was the same.
Which one? That depends on what you’ve been doing with your site.
Too much of something or not enough of something different – Google algorithm updates cover a lot of ground.
Let’s look at seven of the biggest Google algorithm updates of all time.
Google Panda
This algorithm update is the most likely to strike you.Google Panda evaluates websites based on the quality of their content.Pages with high-quality content are rewarded with higher ranking positions, and vice versa.
What triggers the Panda?
Thin content. This doesn’t necessarily mean content with too few words. Need a demonstration? Type “is it Christmas?” in Google’s search bar and see what’s ranking first. The site checks the date and then just says Yes or No in your local language. I won’t encourage you to be laconic like a Spartan, though. When you create content, make sure it provides an explicit answer to the user’s search query.
Low-quality content. This means content that hurts you to even look at it, let alone read. Poorly formatted text with grammar errors, huge or otherwise distracting images, design that negatively affects a user’s experience – anything you suspect will rub users the wrong way, will. Their visit to your site should be enjoyable.
Unhelpful, untrustworthy content. The kind that doesn’t help the users who found it or causes outright harm. Google has no tolerance for incompetence and con artistry. Strive to be a positive force.
Duplicate text. It’s often referred to as “duplicate content”, but Panda really only frowns upon copied chunks of text. Images are fair game. Videos are fair game (except on YouTube). Text is where you should be careful. It’s OK to reuse small bits of text as quotes – if you properly mark them as quotes in context. Reusing text and passing it off as your original work, is a no-go. Do that on enough pages to hamper the quality of your site, and Panda will take action.
Article spinning. This refers to attempts to avoid issues with duplicate content by rewriting text from another site. Unfortunately for those who try it, good content also needs to be original, and spinning often lowers the content’s quality as well (especially if you automate the process with software).
Google Penguin
This is the second algorithm update most likely to hit you. Penguin has a lot in common with Panda, but it evaluates websites for a different factor: their link profiles. Backlinks positively affect a site’s rankings if:
Important note: Google Penguin is not the same as Google’s manual actions for unnatural linking. Penguin is completely automatic and will let its grip on your site when unnatural backlinks are no longer a factor. To deal with a manual action, you’ll need to submit a reconsideration request in addition to purging those links.
What triggers the Penguin?
Buying links. It’s a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to acquire links that pass PageRank in exchange for money or products.
Lack of anchor text diversity. Text inside backlinks is another factor affecting the quality of your link profile. If this text is the same everywhere, it will look to Google like an attempt to manipulate your rankings.
Low quality of links. A backlink will set Penguin off if the content surrounding it is low-quality or contextually irrelevant to the linked page. You can’t always control who links to you, but you should do all you can to get rid of links that harm you.
Keyword stuffing. Surprise! You’d think this would be Panda’s territory, since keywords are on-page content. But Penguin also watches for an unnatural use of keywords. Have you ever encountered pages with long, near-meaningless sentences filled with dozens of search queries? That’s what keyword stuffing looks like at its worst.
Google Pigeon
If you’ve ever dabbled in local SEO, you most likely know about the ranking factors involved in it.But did you know Google uses them in a separate search algorithm?
Two algorithms – one for traditional web search, the other for local search. Such a divided approach returned less than ideal search results. An update was needed to make the two algorithms cooperate better, and so it was made.
What lies in post-Pigeon SEO?
There isn’t much you can do about the distance between your business and the user. But to attract the users who are close enough, there’s everything in your power to help your site appear higher in search.
Google Hummingbird
Unlike Panda and Penguin, the purpose of Google Hummingbird wasn’t to change how websites are ranked – at least not as directly.
Hummingbird aimed to improve search itself: by interpreting the user intent behind a query, it made the algorithm return webpages that would be the most qualified for the task. The context around keywords became just as important as the keywords.
The key lies in understanding what exactly users want to find when searching online.
Most of the time it’s obvious, especially if the query is in the form of a question. Provide answers in your content and be generous with details, synonyms, and contextually related words.
Google Payday Loan
Payday Loan shares a few things in common with Google Panda and Google Penguin, but it’s not to be confused with them. It’s a separate update in its own right. It rolled out in 2013 when Google decided to drain the swamp of pornographic, casino, and high interest loan sites.
This update was straightforward and simple. It targeted sites using high-risk SEO methods (such as spammy links) to rank for the above mentioned keywords: sites with pornographic content, high-interest loan sites, casino sites and so on.
Google Mobile-Friendly update (Mobilegeddon)
One fine day with a boom and a blur, an update rolled out and it caused a little stir. Despite the scary name it received from SEO pros, sites didn’t crash and burn.
All Google did was introduce a new mobile search ranking factor: the user experience quality when viewed on small screens.
Such an innovation was spurred by a significant increase in the number of searches being conducted on mobile devices. Google had a hunch we were were heading toward a mobile-first world – and was completely right. The need to adapt their search algorithm for devices other than PCs was justified.
Fred is Legion, for they are many. Fred is all those minor updates to Google’s search algorithm that are made every day. However, one of those unnamed updates proved to be bigger and more troublesome than most, so this entry will be about this one particular Fred.
What triggers the Fred?
Aggressive advertisement. Fred helped websites that emphasized content over ad revenue, which is why users visit websites in the first place.
Thin, low-value content. If users could find better content elsewhere, Fred shared the sentiment and promptly rewarded the more worthy websites.
Poor user experience. Fred wasn’t picky about the methods of disrupting UX. If a site had popups covering the entire screen, wasn’t optimized for mobile, or had a user-unfriendly navigation, the outcome was the same.
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