Life of an SEO - Surfing the Waves of Google's Many Algorithmic Updates

Transcript

1. Life of An SEO - Surfing the waves of Google’s many algorithmic updates Navigating two decades of evolution Dawn Anderson - March 2024
2. Dawn Anderson • UK based SEO consultant • 17 years in SEO • SEO conference speaker • EU, UK, US, Global Search Awards judge • Former digital marketing lecturer & trainer • Industry publication author Stalker of information retrieval threads and IR conference hashtags since 2017
3. The Life of an SEO…is never boring
4. Search is always changing
5. Whilst Google sees Modern SEOs as partners
6. Google keeps a lot of SEOs sleeping with one eye open
7. Confirmed algorithmic update cadence has increased dramatically in recent years
8. 10 major confirmed updates & 4 broad core updates In 2023 alone
9. Evolution of Google Algorithm Updates
10. In the early days of Google, algorithmic updates were few and far between - e.g. ‘Google Dance’
11. Google Florida Update 2003 - The first major algorithmic update • Wide sweeping consequences • Just before the holiday season • Lots of false-positives / non-spammy sites impacted • Google promised to not run major algorithmic updates before holiday season
12. Caffeine… Stirred the pot
13. The Early Years Jagger Big D addy Florida Fritz Everflux Austin Bourbon PageRank Dewey Vince Caffeine Exact-match
14. By 2012, there were still few enough to give change details monthly
15. Now… Google rolls out 1000s of updates & tests every year Most we don’t even notice
16. Many are merely ‘experiments’ which go nowhere Implicit testing on slices of the search population
17. But… There are disruptive algorithmic updates
18. 2011 - 2013 was VERY notable
19. 2011 - 2013 - A period of aggressive punitive algorithmic updates
20. Google Panda • 2011 • Punitive algorithm • Designed to lower the rankings of low quality content / spun content / content farms / web content spam / duplication • Now part of core
21. 2011… Everyone remembers where they were when Panda first hit
22. Google Penguin • 2012 • Punitive algorithm • Focused on link building / designed to combat link web spam • Many updates / wide impact • Tools appeared to detect ‘toxic’ links
23. It was the Summer of 2013
24. Categories of Updates - Focused / Aspected Algorithmic Updates
25. Local intent updates Google Venice, Google Pigeon, Google Possum
26. Domain Clustering Algorithm Designed to prevent multiple urls from same domain hogging the SERPs • 2013 • Long tail + location sites • Combat sites using granular related internal linking to cluster near relevant pages together in top SERPs • Yelp • Trip Advisor • AKA domain crowding algorithm https://www.seroundtable.com/google-domain-clustering-algorithms -19109.html
27. Interstitial algorithm update On-Page Factor Algorithms 3 Exact-match domain 1 Mobilegeddon Pre-announced mobile friendly update Caused panic and chaos in the SEO space ‘Nothing happened ‘on the day’ 4 2 Page Layout Algorithm Designed to negatively target pages ‘top heavy’ in ‘main content’ with ads A number of variants have been launched • Penalise sites which are presenting an interstitial on entry for users from search • Weak algorithm - Many still use interstitials Suppresses exact-match domain advantages
28. Core Web Vitals - 2020 UX - Page experience and user-centric performance metrics • Speed • Mobile friendliness • HTTPS • Page movement • Interactivity UX measures
29. Ethical Purpose Updates Pirate Payday Loan
30. Link Based Updates • Jagger - Manipulative link building - punitive • PageRank update - a devaluing • Penguin - The big one - Punitive then a devaluing algorithm • Web-spam - Recent (link and web content spam combined)
31. ‘Whole’ system level updates
32. Google Humming Bird - 2013 • 2013 • A system shift toward greater use of natural language understanding in ranking results • Total rewrite of the core algorithm
33. Google RankBrain - 2015 • Hugely misunderstood amongst SEOs • Built upon Hummingbird • Machine learning predictive query algorithm • Designed to bridge gaps in 15% daily unseen queries
34. Google BERT 2019 Needs no introduction • Mostly nuanced queries • Expensive to run • Likely on re-ranking • Unlikely for ‘obvious’ queries • Context and intent emerging
35. Broad Core Updates ‘Total Relevance’ Revisited
36. Most Recent Updates
37. Product Reviews Update • Designed to reward high quality expert product reviews over lower quality reviews. • Not to be confused with user generated content reviews • Lots of blow-back on this update
38. The Helpful Content System Update Negatively impacts sites deemed ‘NOT HELPFUL’ content • Original launch: August 2022 • Punitive algorithm • Rolling site-wide classifier • Constantly learning • Can take months to recover • Site owners have to convince Google their content is now ‘helpful’ to recover
39. Spam Updates Several spam tactics including: • Cloaking • Hacking • Automatic redirects • Scraped content • Auto-generated content Big focus on non-English markets
40. Latest Update - Last Night HCU & combined spam updates - aims to reduce SERPs web spam by 40%
41. Identifying & Resolving Algorithmic Impact
42. SERP volatility tools to monitor for updates • Algaroo • Semrush monitor • Google Grump • MozCast • Cognitive SEO • SERPWoo
43. Monitoring algorithmic flux across different verticals Semrush Sensor • By sector • By country • By feature
44. Be vigilant - Monitor for updates on the horizon
45. Check Google Search Status Dashboard
46. Ascertain whether an algorithmic update has impacted? Utilise tools and follow the data
47. Algorithm checker Sistrix tool
48. Check for visibility drops Sistrix
49. Resolving Algorithmic Impact
50. What should you do? It depends…
51. Many SEOs don’t have to do anything at all… Just continue progressing
52. Don’t panic or re-act too quickly • There are often rollbacks on algorithmic updates • Wait until the total roll-out is completed • Coincidences do happen (technical SEO issues happening at the same time as updates)
53. Evaluate content performance post update Look for patterns where traffic dropped significantly
54. Revisit a technical audit sweep • Crawlability • Connections between pages • Server response codes • Robots management
55. Carry out a UX review Seems particularly prevalent with helpful content update
56. Carry out a content review • Is there content which is out of date? • Irrelevant content? • Factually incorrect content? • Low quality, thin content? • Aggressive advertising? • No interest any more (lacking search demand)? • Programmatically generated?
57. Know Your Audience Create content for them - NOT search engines • What matters to them? • Top Tasks? • Key information needs? • Pain points?
58. Know What Your Audience Considers Helpful Content
59. Clean Up Carefully
60. Build Content Lifecycle Into Your Workflow Assess lifetime value of content Research demand and publish Sunset post demand
61. Finally… Don’t be an ‘algorithm chaser’
62. Thank you Twitter - @dawnieando Website: https://bertey.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/msdawnanderson/