Google Algorithm Updates 2012
2012 has been a big year in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). Google has made numerous changes throughout the year to its search algorithm and index, some of which included penalizing sites that used what were previously common techniques in the SEO industry.
Many people don’t understand just how much the Google search rankings can change over time, especially if their website has not changed, however, Google algorithm updates can have a big impact.
The biggest change was the introduction of Google Penguin. In short, this update penalized SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing or other spam-like techniques. The aim was to punish sites which place more emphasis on ranking high on Google’s search engine rather than grabbing the attention of real people.
Here’s a quick rundown of the major Google algorithm changes since January:
January
January 5th saw the release of a new pack which contained 30 changes, the most important being in respect of the image search results. Just five days later, Google published an update called “Search Plus Your World” which pushed social data and user profiles from Google+ into the search engine results page (SERP).
January 18th saw the release of Panda 3.2- Google announced that this was a data refresh rather than a major update, but this was followed a day later by an update punishing sites which had “too much” advertising above the fold.
February
February began quietly but sparked into life on the 17th with the release of an update dubbed “search quality highlights”. This update mainly affected the speed of the results and the spell-checker within the search engine. Three updates were released February 27th, “Venice” which made search results more local, a service pack update which again improved on the image search function and Panda 3.3, which appeared a minor update affecting few search results.
March
Towards the end of March Google released Panda 3.4. This update, according to Google’s statements, impacted about 1.6% of search results but they revealed little else.
April
April got started with the release of a Google search updates pack on the 03rd. The main consequences were in changes to text-anchor scoring, an update to the image search and changes in hoe local queries were interpreted by the search engine.
On the 16th April Google announced they had fixed a bug which was mistakenly marking down some domains as if they were parked domains. This was not an algorithm change merely a correction. Three days later, Google inaugurated Panda 3.5, which by all accounts was a routine update with minimal impact on SERPs
The real surprise came on 24th April with the release of the “webspam update”, which became known as Google Penguin. Affecting something around 3.1% of English language searches this update penalized tactics such as keyword stuffing. A few days later saw the roll-out of Panda 3.6, another routine update.
May
On 04th May, Google published more details about the algorithm updates from April, including some changes that were tied to Penguin. Google revealed that the base index had increased by 15% whilst there was also the announcement of tiered search results, essentially, results being categorized by relevance to the search term.
Mid-May saw the introduction of the Knowledge Graph, a display panel integrated into SERPs which provides supplemental information about persons, places, etc. The final action for the month came on 25th May when Google announced the introduction of Penguin 1.1. This confirmed that Penguin data is processed outside of the main search engine.
June
On 7th June, Google updated the pack with 39 changes, the most noticeable being improvements in Penguin and updates to Google news. A day later saw the promulgation of Panda 3.7 an update affecting less than 1% of search results, although this was substantially more than the previous two Panda updates. Just before the month end Panda 3.8 was released, but this was a data-only update.
July
July was a quiet month, aside from a links warnings issued on the 19th, which were subsequently recanted, the major news was the update to Panda 3.9 on 24th July. Again this affected less than 1% of queries.
August
August saw an unusual move from Google with the announcement that they would start penalizing sites who repeatedly violated copyright. According to Google, this will be done via DMCA takedown requests. Just four days later, on August 14th, Google announced that the top-10 would more often show a top-7 for many queries. This was estimated to affect about 18% of keywords. The most recent update came on August 20th with the release of Panda 3.9.1 – the impact of which appears to be marginal.