Over the last few years, search engine giant Google has rolled out the dreaded names of a few algorithm with animal themed updates to its services that it’s beginning to look like a safari park. We all have heard about Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird, but do we know what does these mean and how they will be affecting your website and above all what these animals have to do with search engine optimisation?

Every year, Google tests and makes hundreds of updates to the algorithms responsible for ranking content in Google search results. Most of these changes are minor; however, Google sometimes create major algorithmic updates such as Google Panda, Google Penguin and Google Hummingbird. These updates have affected 5% to 20% of the billions of search requests made every month.

It’s been some time now since Google first introduced its Panda & Penguin algorithm updates that fairly shook up search engine optimisation (SEO). The last update that was released in 2013 was the Hummingbird algorithm.

For businesses that rely on high search engine visibility to attract new customers, awareness of these Google updates can benefit to explain these changes in ranking and search traffic, helping to update search engine optimisation tactics.

Below we’ll provide you with a useful explanation of each so you can be better informed about SEO and marketing on Google.

Google Panda – It’s all about Content Quality

Basically, Google Panda is a filter that keeps low quality sites from ranking highly in search engine results. These filters test web pages found in Google; to regulate their credibility. After its release in February 2011, Panda affected almost 12 percent of all search rankings. For the next two years, smaller Google Panda updates continued to be implemented about once a month. Recently, Panda 4.0 was implemented and, according to Google’s Matt Cutts, will “impact 7.5% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice.” According to comScore, there are about 10 billion queries on Google every month.

How can you turn it in your favour?

• Provide valuable & relevant content meant for the targeted customers.
• Avoid creating web pages just for search engines.
• Create content that offers the best source of information about your industry.

Interesting fact:  Panda is actually named after an engineer working at Google’s massive search-quality division.

Google Penguin – Eliminates the Spam Links

Announced on April 24, 2012, Google Penguin came as a response to unethical SEO practices that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google Penguin decreases search engine rankings of the websites that use black-hat SEO techniques and manipulate the number of links pointing to a web page. According to Google’s estimates, this affects approximately 3.1% of search queries in English. The Penguin is uncompromising on poor links and makes it compulsory for the website owner to ensure that all links are high quality links from trustworthy sources.

What you should do about Penguin?

• Do not employ spam SEO practices by buying links from other websites or using tactics to artificially inflate links.
• Draw links with great content and use online PR to increase comments by industry publications and blogs.
• Develop links to use a variety of appropriate anchor text pointing to corresponding pages of your website.

Google Hummingbird – Answering the Questions

Implemented on August 30, 2013, Google Hummingbird is dedicated to mediating the context of webpages. Google Hummingbird determines to provide users with exactly what they’re looking for. Unlike previous algorithms, Google Hummingbird considers how each word in a search makes up the request entirety. It implements ‘conversational search’ to better understand what users mean when they type or speak a search query into Google.

What does this mean for your businesses?

• Focus on content that answers customers’ questions.

• Build high-quality links to boost your authority by gaining shares of your site on social media platforms and other sites.
• Focus on good, strong copywriting and design to stay ahead.

So there you have it – an overview of the Google safari park so far! Understanding these algorithmic updates on Google can help you avoid making errors and might improve your search visibility. Be alert of all search engine updates and stay ahead of the SEO game!

Do you have more questions?

Web Leap Solutions offers a wide variety of effective and affordable search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies to meet the needs of small, medium and large businesses which are driven by the rules.  Contact us on 01772 508117.