Early in May 2015, some webmasters and web owners have seen a change in how their websites perform on Google's Search. While no significant updates have been made by the search giant, Google said that there were changes to its core ranking algorithms that made these happened.
Google's algorithm has been improvised to show better results when it is accessing quality contents. Because of that, when Google sees signals from quality contents, it will improve their visibility to a relatively significant amount.
Dubbed as the "Quality Update," Google is not specific on how its algorithms process the information. But since quality of a page is determined by a many factors, Google is weighing some of those factors more than others. And that changes visibility to some websites, some bigger than others.
Google also said that the update didn't go after any particular class of websites or any particular niches or types. The update is to the overall ranking algorithm itself.
Google, Quietly Busy
Google has been quiet in a few months, but that doesn't mean it stops doing what it does best: improving overall internet search experience.
The search giant is silently tweaking its algorithm much frequently than most marketers imagine. The result? Many websites' ranking on Google were affected. Many different markets and niches started to see fluctuations.
As with major updates, such as the Penguin and the Panda, Google was also busy in improving its search results by partnering with Twitter to deliver tweets better in its pages. With the "Firehose", tweets can be more visible than ever.
In March 2015, Google has announced an update to its algorithm that aimed at penalizing websites with doorway pages. This was to penalize websites that uses black hat SEO for greater visibility.
Then comes the algorithm update dubbed the "mobilegeddon" that was launched on April 2015. This was more of a game-changing move by Google. The update aims to rank better visibility for mobile-friendly websites.
This has made a huge impact on the search visibility of local business websites for mobile users.
Web pages that passes, or have good scores in Google's Mobile-Friendly Test, can have a boost in mobile search rankings, while those that failed, or came up with low scores, are pushed down.
With the new updates, Google is having a better interest on websites that can give better user experience for mobile users, and those that deliver quality contents. Websites that do both, have started to see better rankings if compared to competitors that don't put quality and mobile-friendliness on their priority list.
Reverting the effects of those updates, if you were hit, can be a lot of work. But making the changes can be worth a lot better in the end for you and all that involved.
