In today’s article we are going to take on the topic of Google algorithms – how they work, their features and the most known updates.
What are they and where did they come from?
The Google algorithms are pretty much a set of tasks for our search engine that allow it to analyze the information stored on websites. Which means it’s a kind of a collection of rules that help the search engine determine the value of websites so that it can display them in a specific order later. The purpose of creating them was, in simplest words, to Clean up the Internet, which is filled with literally billions of different web pages and bits of information.
Very briefly speaking: the algorithms allow Google to discover and scan both the existing and the newly launched websites, then index them, and finally display them in search results for adequate keywords. If it wasn’t for Google algorithms, we would have all probably gotten lost on the web.
PageRank
The first algorithm the Google search engine was based on is the PageRank system patented by the owners of Google.
The PageRank algorithm based its activity on calculating a website’s value on a scale of 0 to 10 based on the number of websites referring to it and their own values. The details of Calculations, however, were never made public and to this day they constitute one of the company’s secrets.
Panda
The algorithm named after Navneet Panda, a Google engineer, caused quite a commotion, pretty much a revolution, in the approach to website positioning. The major changes:
- Penalties for content duplication when it came from both External and internal (subpages) sources.
- Promoting websites that present exhaustive, relevant articles.
- Recognizing keyword saturation and eliminating low-value content created only to improve the position in search results.
Penguin
The task of the algorithm with a vibrant name of Penguin is above all to battle spam and counteract all symptoms of unethical behavior. The Penguin mainly evaluates the following:
- The number of links leading to a website – if there is a very large number of them in a short time, it may mean an attempt at cheating.
- The quality of links. Penguin can detect if they come from websites with Unethical activity and low indicators that include nothing but web addresses.
Hummingbird
Another bird among Google algorithms is Hummingbird, which is characterized by its speed and precision. The date of launching the new Google algorithm isn’t quite clear. On 20th August 2013 it was revealed that the algorithm had already been implemented a month earlier.
Pigeon
The Pigeon update introduced further upgrades to local searching. Ever since then, Google recognizes the user’s location without having to add the city to the query. Above all, it introduced a combination of search results on the maps and organic results in the search engine.
Conclusion
One minute on the Internet is a very intense time. During that time, 3.5 million queries are fed into the Google search engine, 4.1 million videos are played on YouTube and 452 thousand Tweets are posted. Thanks to algorithms, the content that reaches us suits our needs. For website owners it means that above all they should Focus on actually working on the website. It’s a good idea to Optimize the site and make sure it complies with Google guidelines for Webmasters, which have only changed once since the beginning of the search engine.
