Evolution & Updates Of SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the number of visitors to the website to achieve high position in search results.
The three processes of search engine optimization are
- Crawling
- Catching
- Indexing
Crawling is the process of scanning the website to get the information. In Catching process, the snapshot of the page is taken and save it to the database. Indexing is the process of listing the webpages. This is done by the webmasters, who control the website.
Search engine optimization can be done in 2 types
- On-page Optimization
- Off-page Optimization
On-page optimization includes changes in the activities of website. Off-page optimization means working outside the website by sharing webpages in the social media.
Mainly 2 types of SEO practices are there
- White hat SEO
- Black hat SEO
White Hat SEO is the ethical practice of optimizing web pages while Black Hat SEO is the non-ethical practice of optimizing web pages. Black hat SEO includes over optimization, duplicate content etc.
Evolution of SEO
Early 2000 google has issues with searching and scanning. The problem recognized is the lack of optimization. In older days, the search engines are content specific or niche specific. The optimization is done based on the number of keywords. The website will be on higher position, when it has more number of keywords. Thus users started to do keyword stuffing by adding too many keywords in webpage in order to obtain high rank. The keywords can be added in the blank spaces and making their font color as background color, so that it will not be visible to the users. Also keywords can be added in meta tags which gives a brief description of web pages. This is a black hat SEO practice.
Thus later google replaced content specific from link specific. Link specific indicates more links on website, then site will be on top rank. Thus webmasters try to add more links and it ultimately leads to link selling. But they didn't focus on the quality of websites. So google changes link specific to quality link specific. Which leads to the concept of google page rank with range of 10. Page rank is based on the number of quality links and subscriptions. There are only few number of websites having page rank of 10 like twitter, US gov site etc. Last update of page rank was on 2013. Page rank concept was also become a problem for google because of high page rank link selling. So google introduces passing the juice which means website with higher page rank trying to sell the links to another site, the page rank of the seller site is automatically reduced. After that google came with the concept nofollow links. Which means the equity of the site will not be reduced while passing the links.
<a href="abcd.com" rel="nofollow">abcd</a>
When search engine become hit, google introduces google adwords which is a pre-paid advertisement mechanism on google. Cost-per-click is the method of paying website on each click on that ad. The cost will be reduced on each click. Later google introduces google adsense. Which is a method of earn money or commission from google.
After 2008, google introduces new updates based on quality. Thus they make a team called webspam team for updating new mechanisms. Matt Cutts was the head of the team. Google become personal assistant due to this team.
By 2009, google came with the concept, google suggest. Which means page rank will automatically increases when user responses. If user opens a website and closes or suddenly click backspace within seconds without any interactions then page ranking is decreases. This concept is called pogo sticking. 80% of people are spending time on social media. Thus at 2010, google update was based on social media signals. Google introduces social media authority to improve ranking by examine the interaction or authority value of people.
Google updates
Panda update is raised on 2011 which is against content spamming. It is used to remove quality less webpages from search result. The different types of content spamming are content duplication or content plagiarism, using quality less webpages, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, publishing thinny pages with less content, content spinning with paragraph repeating etc. In panda update, panda 4.0 update at 2014 is very important. Because more webpages removed from search result. Thus google added panda as a permanent filter in their algorithm to easily detect and remove webpages. Webpages with low clarity can be put in temporary database called sandbox.
It was introduced in 2012 to remove link spamming. Types of link spamming are link exchange between different sites, paid links, link farming, comment spamming, wiki spamming etc. Guest blogging is adding links or writing to someones blog as a guest user. After a limit, it will also be a spam activity. Penguin 4.0 update was added to the core algorithm.
By 2013, google introduces hummingbird update to add semantic search results. Google give the best results based on artificial intelligence. But the drawback is that google will be misunderstanding in some situations. Rankbrain is the next version of update of hummingbird at 2015. Here search engine automatically upgraded depends upon the search methods.
It is based on local SEO where location based search results are given. Five processes of local SEO are place mark, valid address, local directory, geotagging and local interactions.
It is against the copyright piracy. Based on US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we can register complaints and google take necessary steps against copying.
Its a 2012 update called Exact Match Domain update. It is against the websites that use an exact match domain to rank for keywords in Google.
It is 2012 update used to avoid blocking of sites.
Google introduces mobile friendly update at 2015 in order to remove non-responsive sites from search engine. Update focuses on the fact that responsive sites on mobile phones will be user-friendly.
