5 Google Updates that Rocked the SEO World

If you are very keen on any web related news, then the term ’user experience’ is not new to you. Everybody talks about user experience from online gaming companies to the social networks, from e-commerce owners to those who shop online and many others. For years, Google has taken initiatives towards a better user experience. In the past two years, there have been some credible initiatives; this is evident from the many Google updates that have been rolled out since 2010. These updates have totally changed the search mechanism. Many updates rolled out by Google have made great impacts. However, some have totally turned things around. Below are the top 5 Google updates. These Google updates rocked SEO world and drove webmasters all over the world to reconsider their SEO strategy. Read on.

1. Google Caffeine-
Technically, this is not an update. It’s actually Google’s new web indexing system, but popularly known as an update. From the user point of view, this is a very important update since it enables him/her to get information as fresh as it was published minutes ago. According to Google, you can now find more fresh information, this is irrespective of when and where the publication was made. The Caffeine has taken Google’s effort towards a better user experience to another level and this has driven webmasters to consider freshness as a very important factor when it comes to ranking.

2. Freshness update-
Freshness factor has always been favored by Google. Therefore, Google made a major step when they launched the Google caffeine; this is Google’s new indexing system. Basically this was the infrastructure used by Google to improve on freshness. This freshness update provides a further boost to the freshness factor and therefore impacting 35 percent of the total searches.

3. Panda update-
Everyone in the SEO industry must have heard of panda update. It’s a widely discussed and publicized Google update. This update proved to be one great setback for the many webmasters who greatly relied on low quality content. Basically, panda works by targeting low quality content; this has been since February 2011 when it was launched. This has brought many changes in the SEO world and therefore compelling webmasters to reconsider their content strategy. Today, many versions of panda have been rolled out.

4. Penguin Update or Penguin attack-
This came as a wakeup call to the blunt spammers. Penguin targets web spam. Web spam can be referred to as black hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, clocking, manipulative link building methods, duplicate contents and so much more. Literally, penguin has left SEOs with one option, white hat. Although it may take a few months for things to completely materialize, the effects have already been seen; it has taken a toll on many sites all over the world.

5. Social signals-
Going social has become the need for every business. This drive has been fueled further by the Google’s initiative to include social signals in the algorithm. Google has already confirmed that social signals have played a great role in SERP, they will also play a significant role going ahead with Google+ and +1 buttons indicating a similar thing. This initiative marks a great beginning of a new phase known as social SEO.

From Google’s point of view, all the afore-mentioned updates are extremely important. The above 5 Google updates rocked SEO world and have greatly helped Google set new standards for the future and its now very clear Google is moving towards a better user experience.

Post By
This post has been written by Richel Queen. She is evangelist for growthseed.com.