If you have ever had a blog or a website, you will be aware that to receive visits, it is essential to get along with Google and its algorithm. The visibility of your brand will depend on this and, with it, the results at the sales level. No one really knows how the Google search engine works (except for the engineers who develop it) and that is why it is so difficult to predict exactly how content will work, since this algorithm is also constantly evolving. That's why we want to give you a few tips to get to know it a little better and we also tell you how the new changes that Google has introduced influence it.

What is the Google algorithm and what does it consist of?

The Google algorithm is a series of mathematical operations that determines whether your content is relevant or not for a specific search . Based on this criterion, the ranking of results that Google offers you when you perform a search is established. As we have already told you, the more content conforms to that algorithm, the higher it will appear in the search results and, consequently, the more traffic it will get and surely also more sales, if it is an online store, which is what It concerns us in this blog.

Google algorithm updates

This successful search engine has been updating its algorithm for years to fight against weak or low-quality content, which constantly tries to circumvent its security measures. For this reason, it has been releasing different updates, each of which has tried to fight against a different type of fraudulent use.

• Google Panda (February 2011): this update was born to combat what is known as weak internet content, also duplicate or plagiarized, excess keywords or other quality problems. It also emerged with the objective of rewarding those websites with unique and quality content. This update gives each web page an internal rating based on which it is sorted in search results. Such was the success of this update, which was added in 2016 to the heart of the algorithm.
• Google Penguin (April 2012): In this case, the reason why this Google update arose was to try to fight against those websites that bought links on other pages trying to trick the Google search engine. Before Penguin, this was one of the main criteria for indexing web pages and later, as the algorithm was refined, it was much more difficult to fool it. Those websites whose links were real and of quality began to be rewarded. This update in 2016 was also added to Google's root algorithm.
• Google Hummingbird (August 2013): in this case, a more human and conversational search experience was sought, thus enhancing the system's artificial intelligence by focusing more on the context of the search than on the terms used themselves. Includes semantic indexing, synonyms, and other skills to interpret queries and generate results.
• Google Pigeon (July 2014): With this update, Google intended to take more into account local businesses that had an important organic presence in the algorithm. In this way, users who performed certain searches could have better results taking into account those who were closer to their location.
• Google Mobilegeddon (April 2015): This is the first update that takes mobile optimization into account and considers it as an important factor when it comes to positioning. In this way, the most optimized sites rise in positions, while those that are not, drop significantly, even disappearing from the list.
• Google RankBrain (October 2015): was created to better understand the reasoning of someone who searches for something on Google and returns the best and most relevant results. There is a belief that this algorithm identifies and rates different websites based on specific searches, so a site highly rated for one search may not be highly rated for another.
• Increase in the size of Google snippets (November 2017): going from 155 to 300 characters, this was an important update in the meta descriptions of web pages, since it allowed the search engine to better understand the results it was offering, adjusting more closely to the searches performed. However, in 2018 Google reduced the size again, leaving it at the original 155 characters.
• Google indexing focused on mobile phones (March 2018): here Google once again valued navigation from mobile devices, granting more value to those sites fully optimized for this type of navigation.
• Google Medic (August 2018): extensive Google algorithm update. It had a lot of impact on health-related content, which is why it received that name. SEO experts pointed out that it was focused on eliminating poor quality websites and weak or duplicate content.
• Core Update (May 2020): this latest update follows the line that the internet giant has always sought, to offer the best results to improve the user experience with truly relevant information.

As you have seen for yourself in the previous lines, the Google algorithm is a complex system and difficult to understand . That is why it is advisable that you make an investment in SEO to improve the content of your website and thus appear well positioned in Google results. This will help you generate traffic and also put you in contact with potential clients.

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