Google Updates

Das Google Penguin Update 2.0 ist eine neue, verbesserte Generation der am 24.04.2012 erstmalig für alle Sprachen weltweit ausgespielten Algorithmus-Änderung “Google Penguin Update“, welche das Ziel verfolgt, Webspam in den Surchergebnissen weiter (und radikaler) einzudämmen

Das Penguin Update 2.0 ist nicht der dritte Data-Refresh der Algorithmus-Änderung “Penguin”, sondern ist als eine umfassende Algorithmus-Änderung seitens Google zu verstehen, da sich die zugrunde liegende Technologie zur Webspam-Erkennung nach eigenen Aussagen deutlich weiterentwickelt und verbessert hat.

This algorithm-change causes Exact-Match Domains, with low-quality content, to fall behind in the searchresults.

The “DMCA Penalty” was announced on 2012-10-08 and was subsequently released a week later. With this update, Google penalises websites that were repeatedly suspected of violating copyright laws, by moving them to the back of the searchresults.

The Penguin Update had the goal to further curb webspam in the searchresults (in a more radical manner).

This algorithm-change was rolled-out globally for all languages on 2012-04-24 and had a noticeable effect on the searchresults.

Google classifies “webspam” as techniques that are used by website-operators to gain as high a position as possible within the searchresults.

A collection of smaller updates, all implemented in the month of March. Among others, the changes aimed at updating the algorithm for determining high quality websites (Panda) as well as changes in how linktexts are rated.

On 2012-02-27, Google announced the implementation of an algorithm-change which increased the amount of Google Places-integrations in the organic searchresults, code-named “Venice”.

The Page Layout Algorithm Update (Ads Above The Fold) was a globally rolled-out change to Google’s ranking-algorithm on 2012-01-19.

From that point on, Google started to take into account the relationship between content and advertisements in the directly visible (above the fold) area of a website. This means that, if this ratio should ever come out in favor of the advertisements, a website could be penalised.

This algorithm-change saw the light-of-day at the start of November 2011 and had an effect on 6% – 10% of all searchqueries, depending on the chosen language and country. This update paved the way for Google to show newer and more up-to-date searchresults for a searchquery.

On 2011-08-16, Google introduced the so-called Expanded Sitelinks to a global audience and changed the way they displayed the first search-results-page for brand queries.

On 2011-08-12, Google rolled-out the Panda Update globally for all available languages, except Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

The Google Panda algorithm-update was rolled-out internationally for all English searchqueries on 2011-11-04.

The Panda Update is a filter in Google’s algorithm, which makes it possible to noticeably decrease the visibility of low-quality websites.

The initial Google Panda algorithm-update for English searchqueries was rolled-out for the US-search market on 2011-02-24.

Following a prolonged testing-phase of several month, Google unveiled a new system of how to index content on the web, code-named “Caffeine”. This newly created searchindex is now called Caffeine. This infrastructure-update made it possible for Google to provide approximately 50% more up-to-date searchresults than before.

This algorithm-change was implemented between 2010-04-28 and 2010-05-03 on a global scale and was subsequently called “May Day”. This update had a massive effect on so-called Long-Tail keywords. Short-Head keywords were largely spared by the update.

The Vince Update, which also became known as the Brand Update, was introduced in February of 2009, followed by a gradual, global roll-out.

Several Google datacenters delivered different SERP-results. It seems that 72.14.207.104 and 64.233.183.104 were affected.

Matt Cutts confirmed that numerous smaller algorithm-changes were implemented under the Name Buffy, in honour of Vanessa Fox who left Google that year.

Google used the Universal Search Update to integrate their vertical searches, such as News, Videos, Images, Local and more into the traditional SERPs.

Over the course of the year 2006, Google made numerous changes to their Supplemental Index and changed the way and form in which filtered pages were handled. Towards the end of the year, Google announced that these changes were not to be seen as a penalty.

The infrastructure-update “Big Daddy”, which is comparable to the newer Caffeine Update, was a software-improvement which targeted Google’s crawling and indexing-system. The update roll-out took multiple months and received the final post-processing in March of 2006.

After introducing their Local Business Center in March of 2005, Google merged their Maps-data with the Local Business Center and thus initiated a trend-setting change for Local SEO.

The Jagger Update is a collection of smaller algorithm-changes that were implemented in three stages over the months of September, October and November of 2005. This Update targeted low-quality links, reciprocal links, link-farms and paid links, among others. Webmasters noticed the largest changes in October.

From this day on, Google gave webmasters the opportunity to upload a XML sitemap to the Google Webmaster Tools. This gave them a direct means of influencing Google’s crawling and indexing of their sites.

Google started to show personalised searchresults, based on a user’s previous searches, which led to automatically customised (personal) searchresults.

Matt Cutts confirmed that Google implemented “something like 3.5 improvements in search quality”. It is assumed that this Google update changed the algorithm in terms of how duplicate content and non-canonical (www vs. non-www) URLs are handled.

It is being rumored that Google implemented an algorithm-update which began to penalise “suspicious-looking” links.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft jointly introduced the nofollow-attribute as a way to fight of spam and add a quality-control mechanism for outgoing links.

Google implemented numerous algorithm-updates, one of which was a massive expansion of their index, as well as the option to use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). Additionally, they started to pay increased attention to the relevance of anchor-texts. By implementing LSI, Google gained the ability to better identify link-neighborhoods.

Everything that was not influenced by the Florida Update in November of 2003 got hit by the Austin Update. This algorithm-change was also targeted at deceptive On-Page tactics, including “invisible” texts and meta-elements.

The “Florida” Update is considered to be one of the most important and extensive changes in the history of both Google and the entirety of the SEO-sector. A great number of websites lost visibility and ranking-positions over the course of this algorithm-update. Google used the Florida Update to penalise webmasters for their “low-quality” 90′s SEO-tactics, such as keyword-spamming, -stuffing and so forth.

Google started to section off parts of the searchresults into a so-called “supplemental” index, in order to index more documents than ever before, without having to suffer any performance issues.

The Fritz Update put an end to the monthly “Google Dance”. Google stopped updating their index once a month and instead switched over to a strategy of incremental updates. The index was now updated in parts, every day.

The Esmerelda Update marks the end of the regular, monthly algorithm-changes and is likely the result of an infrastructure-change on the part of Google. From this point forward, we saw a continuous process of updates, the so-called Everflux.

The Dominic Update drastically changed Google’s approach to counting, as well as reporting backlinks.

The algorithm-update Cassandra penalised both websites with hidden text, as well as hidden links. The massive internal linking of co-owned domains was also negatively impacted.

This algorithm-change was announced at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) in Boston and was the first Google update that received an official name. Henceforth, Google started to implement large algorithm-changes on a monthly basis. The Boston Update was a combination of multiple algorithm-changes and an extensive index-update. This gave birth to the so-called “Google-Dance”.

The first ever documented change to the Google-algorithm was implemented in September of 2002. A massive reorganisation in the SERPs could be observed, even though no details were ever published.