Google Algorithm Update 2019

A rare Google confirmation came related to a Google search algorithm update this week (12 march 2019). Google restated previous advice that there is no fix if your site was negatively impacted.

Google released a broad core search algorithm on March 12 - AKA Florida 2

Why it matters:

Google does several core ranking updates per year and confirms very few updates throughout the year. Specific to broad core updates, Google has said numerous times that you cannot do anything specific to fix your rankings. Google’s previous advice is, "there’s no ‘fix’ for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages."
If your rankings did change recently, it may have been related to this broad core ranking update and not necessarily related to a technical change you made on your website.

What changed?

Right now it is very early and it is hard to guess what has changed. Based on the SEO chatter around this update, prior to Google confirming the update, some are saying this was again targeting the health/medical space. But, Google has said there was no specific target at medical or health sites with that August 1st update.
It is hard to know which types of sites were impacted the most right now. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated on any insights we see related to this update.

Google’s previous advice.

Google has previously shared this advice around broad core algorithm updates:
"Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our results. Some are focused around specific improvements. Some are broad changes. Last week, we released a broad core algorithm update. We do these routinely several times per year.

As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded.

There’s no "fix" for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages."
Source: To see more advice from Google around Google updates, see this Twitter thread.

Major Google SEO Updates & Algorithm Changes from 2009 to 2017

Google has a long history of famous algorithm updates, search index changes and refreshes.

2017 Updates

• Snippet Length Increase — November 30, 2017
• Featured Snippet Drop — October 27, 2017
• Chrome HTTPS Warnings — October 17, 2017
• Google Tops 50% HTTPS — April 16, 2017
• "Fred" (Unconfirmed) — March 8, 2017
• Intrusive Interstitial Penalty — January 10, 2017

2016 Updates

• Penguin 4.0, Phase 2 — October 6, 2016
• Penguin 4.0, Phase 1 — September 27, 2016
• Penguin 4.0 Announcement — September 23, 2016
• Image/Universal Drop — September 13, 2016
• "Possum" — September 1, 2016
• Mobile-friendly 2 — May 12, 2016
• AdWords Shake-up — February 23, 2016

2015 Updates

• RankBrain* — October 26, 2015
• Panda 4.2 (#28) — July 17, 2015
• The Quality Update — May 3, 2015
• Mobile Update AKA "Mobilegeddon" — April 22, 2015

2014 Updates

• Pigeon Expands (UK, CA, AU) — December 22, 2014
• Penguin Everflux — December 10, 2014
• Pirate 2.0 — October 21, 2014
• Penguin 3.0 — October 17, 2014
• "In The News" Box — October 1, 2014
• Panda 4.1 (#27) — September 23, 2014
• Authorship Removed — August 28, 2014
• HTTPS/SSL Update — August 6, 2014
• Pigeon — July 24, 2014
• Authorship Photo Drop — June 28, 2014
• Payday Loan 3.0 — June 12, 2014
• Panda 4.0 (#26) — May 19, 2014
• Payday Loan 2.0 — May 16, 2014
• Page Layout #3 — February 6, 2014

2013 Updates

• Authorship Shake-up  —  December 19, 2013
• Penguin 2.1 (#5)  —  October 4, 2013
• Hummingbird  —  August 20, 2013
• In-depth Articles  —  August 6, 2013
• Knowledge Graph Expansion  —  July 19, 2013
• Panda Recovery  —  July 18, 2013
• "Payday Loan" Update  —  June 11, 2013
• Panda Dance  —  June 11, 2013
• Penguin 2.0 (#4)  —  May 22, 2013
• Domain Crowding  —  May 21, 2013
• "Phantom"  —  May 9, 2013
• Panda #25  —  March 14, 2013
• Panda #24  —  January 22, 2013

2012 Updates

• Panda #23  —  December 21, 2012
• Knowledge Graph Expansion  —  December 4, 2012
• Panda #22  —  November 21, 2012
• Panda #21  —  November 5, 2012
• Page Layout #2  —  October 9, 2012
• Penguin #3  —  October 5, 2012
• Panda #20  —  September 27, 2012
• Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update  —  September 27, 2012
• Panda 3.9.2 (#19)  —  September 18, 2012
• Panda 3.9.1 (#18)  —  August 20, 2012
• 7-Result SERPs  —  August 14, 2012
• DMCA Penalty ("Pirate")  —  August 10, 2012
• Panda 3.9 (#17)  —  July 24, 2012
• Link Warnings  —  July 19, 2012
• Panda 3.8 (#16)  —  June 25, 2012
• Panda 3.7 (#15)  —  June 8, 2012
• Penguin 1.1 (#2)  —  May 25, 2012
• Knowledge Graph  —  May 16, 2012
• Panda 3.6 (#14)  —  April 27, 2012
• Penguin  —  April 24, 2012
• Panda 3.5 (#13)  —  April 19, 2012
• Panda 3.4 (#12)  —  March 23, 2012
• Search Quality Video  —  March 12, 2012
• Panda 3.3 (#11)  —  February 27, 2012
• Venice  —  February 27, 2012
• Ads Above The Fold  —  January 19, 2012
• Panda 3.2 (#10)  —  January 18, 2012

2011 Updates

• Panda 3.1 (#9)  —  November 18, 2011
• Query Encryption  —  October 18, 2011
• Panda "Flux" (#8)  —  October 5, 2011
• Panda 2.5 (#7)  —  September 28, 2011
• Pagination Elements  —  September 15, 2011
• Expanded Sitelinks  —  August 16, 2011
• Panda 2.4 (#6)  —  August 12, 2011
• Panda 2.3 (#5)  —  July 23, 2011
• Google+  —  June 28, 2011
• Panda 2.2 (#4)  —  June 21, 2011
• Schema.org  —  June 2, 2011
• Panda 2.1 (#3)  —  May 9, 2011
• Panda 2.0 (#2)  —  April 11, 2011
• The +1 Button  —  March 30, 2011
• Panda/Farmer  —  February 23, 2011
• Attribution Update  —  January 28, 2011

2010 Updates

• Negative Reviews  —  December 1, 2010
• Social Signals  —  December 1, 2010
• Instant Previews  —  November 1, 2010
• Google Instant  —  September 1, 2010
• Brand Update  —  August 1, 2010
• Caffeine (Rollout)  —  June 1, 2010
• Google Places  —  April 1, 2010

2009 Updates

• Real-time Search  —  December 1, 2009
• Caffeine (Preview)  —  August 1, 2009
• Vince  —  February 1, 2009
• Rel-canonical Tag  —  February 1, 2009

‘Hawk’ Google Local Algorithm Update

Have you noticed a recent shift in Google's local search results?

August 22, 2017: The day the ‘Hawk’ Google local algorithm update swooped in

‘Hawk’ Google Local Algorithm Update

The update, which I have dubbed “Hawk,” was a change to the way the local filter works. To get some history here, Google actively filters out listings from the local results that are similar to other listings that rank already. Basically, Google picks the most relevant listing of the bunch and filters the rest. It’s very similar to what they do organically with duplicate content. (Note: Google is typically loath to confirm algorithm updates, usually only saying that it rolls out several updates every day, so these observations are based on an analysis of how local results have changed rather than on any official announcement or acknowledgment.)

The filter has existed for a long time to help ensure that multiple listings for the same company don’t monopolize the search results. In September 2016, the Possum algorithm update made a significant change to the way the filter works. Instead of just filtering out listings that shared the same phone number or website, Google started filtering out listings that were physically located near each other.

This was very problematic for businesses. It meant that if another business in your industry was in the same building as you — or even down the street from you — that could cause you to get filtered out of local search results. Yep, that means your competitors could (inadvertently) bump your listing!

On August 22, 2017, Google refined the proximity filter to make it stricter. It still appears to be filtering out businesses in the same building, but it is not filtering out as many businesses that are close by.

Who is still filtered?

Naturally, this update didn’t help everyone. Although it tightened the distance needed to filter a similar listing, it didn’t remove it completely. I’m still seeing listings that share an address or building being filtered out of local search results. I also see the filtering problem persisting for a business that is in a different building that’s around 50 feet away from a competitor.

Why ‘Hawk?’

The local search community settled on the name “Hawk” for this algorithm update, because hawks eat possums. This is one of the few times where I don’t see any negative outcomes as a result of this update and just wish Google hadn’t taken a year to realize the proximity filter was way too broad.

Source: Search Engine Land

3 Main Factors in On-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO Checklist

Here is a checklist you can use to make sure you are doing everything possible to rank higher in search engines.

1. Keyword placement:
• Keyword in the title.
• Keyword in the permalink.
• Keyword in the first paragraph.
• Keyword in the image alt tag.
• Use LSI keywords in the body (use SEOPressor plugin to find related keywords).
Use LSI keyword in H2 or H3.
• Shoot for around a 1.5% keyword density.
2. Other things:
• Remove all stop words from permalink.
• Add multimedia (video, slides, infographics).
• Minimum 500 words.
• Optimize images before uploading (compress and resize).
• Optimize page load speed.
• Create a meta title - should be less than 65 characters.
• Create a meta description in between 120 - 150 characters approx.
• Internal links to related articles.
• Outbound links to relevant high-quality sites.
3. Other things not mentioned here:
• Make sure to add an image for Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Make sure to have social sharing buttons either at the end or floating on the site of your post.
• Have related posts after each post to lower down bounce rate.

Local SEO For Your Business

How To Target Your Local Area For Your Business (Local SEO)

In Local SEO we increase visibility of website locally. We offers a neighborhood SEO seek technique particularly customized to your area to guarantee the correct outside area signs are sent and inbound connections, on-page and social flags and audit signs to Google about the areas most significant to your business. We utilize promoting methodologies that permit you to construct a more grounded client base that permits your business to develop naturally.

We put extraordinary push to accomplish higher rankings in neighborhood list items by consistently checking the movement source and persistently re-assessing data for exactness. We make profiles on well known web and online networking stages, and give helpful data to target gatherings of people.

Featured Snippets in Search Results

At the point when a client poses a question in Google Search, we may demonstrate a query item in an exceptional highlighted snippet obstruct at the highest point of the list items page. This highlighted snippet square incorporates a rundown of the appropriate response, removed from a website page, in addition to a connection to the page, the page title and URL. An included snippet may look something like this on the page:

There are some questions which comes in mind;

According to Google Support Or Search Console Help -

Where does the answer summary come from?

The summary is a snippet extracted programmatically from what a visitor sees on your web page. What's different with a featured snippet is that it is enhanced to draw user attention on the results page. When we recognize that a query asks a question, we programmatically detect pages that answer the user's question, and display a top result as a featured snippet in the search results.

Like all search results, featured snippets reflect the views or opinion of the site from which we extract the snippet, not that of Google. We are always working to improve our ability to detect the most useful snippet, so the results you see may change over time. You can provide feedback on any Featured Snippet by clicking the "Give Feedback" link at the bottom of the box.

Opting out of featured snippets

You can opt out of featured snippets by preventing snippets on your page using the tag on your page. This will remove all snippets on your page, including those in regular search results.

How can I mark my page as a featured snippet?

You can't. Google programmatically determines that a page contains a likely answer to the user's question, and displays the result as a featured snippet.

Is this part of Knowledge Graph?

No, this is a normal search result, emphasized with special layout.
This is very useful for any business who provide a Number to support some products Or services, who have any answer for related question which was asked in search box (query) etc.

Update Source: Google Search Console Help

On Page SEO Techniques

"Basic On-Page SEO Techniques"

There are two main factors in search engine optimization. On-page optimization and off-page optimization. Both factors are connected with each others for website search engine ranking. It is very important to optimize both techniques for better website ranking in search engine. On-page optimization help us to create website search SEO and search engine friendly, off page assist us to create quality back links for great ranking.

Some on page SEO techniques and their outputs:

Meta Title Tag:- Meta title tag describe the about web page content. It is most important part of on page SEO. Title tag with the appearance of keyword make easy to keywords ranking. We can find title in three places external website, search engine result pages and browsers.

Character Limit: - Google prefer character limit less than 70 character including space. With this character limit Google displays in search results.

Title Structure: - Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Brand Name

Meta Description Tag:- Meta description is the HTML text which explain about web page content. It increases the possibility of user’s clicks. Means to say it increase the click through-rates of web pages. Most favorable character limit for meta description tag is 155-160 characters including space.

Meta Keywords:- Meta keywords is the part which also important in on-page SEO. This part help to boost keyword ranking in other famous search engines like Yahoo, Bing, MSN and Ask etc. So we can say appearance of meta keyword can increase the possibility of better ranking in other search engines.

Heading tag:- This tag represent the different section of web page content. Head tag help search engine spider relevancy between heading tag and web page content. Including that it also give the idea to user about web page content.

XML Sitemap:- Many webmasters think that XML sitemap is useless in SEO. It is the important part of website which help website in indexing and made website accessible to users and search engine crawler.

Robots.txt File: A robots.txt file restricts access to your site by search engine robots that crawl the web. These bots are automated, and before they access pages of a site, they check to see if a robots.txt file exists that prevents them from accessing certain pages.

URL Canonicalization: Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

• www.example.com
• example.com
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/home.asp
  

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a URL, we try to pick the URL that seems like the best representative from that set.

Image ALT tag:- With the all on page parts image alt tag is also play very important role in website ranking. Search engine crawler cannot read image without this tag. So we can say image alt help crawler to read about image. It is also helpful to boost keyword ranking with images.