Google has released numerous updates since 2003 and is still doing it and we aimed to give an overview of all of Google’s ranking updates to our readers through this article. But it’s not the end.
Google will keep rolling out ranking updates in 2023 and beyond, and we will keep informing you on the latest ones as they launch.
Key Takeaways
Google released its second Link Spam Update of 2022, two months after it launched the first one in October. That update came after almost one year of the previous link spam update.
Released on 14th December, this update was fully rolled out on 12 January after about a month.
Google developers intended to capture sites that utilize fraudulent link-building strategies with this update. Google has spam-prevention software called SpamBrain that uses artificial intelligence to spot spammy backlinks. and it was working before the update was launched, However, Google enhanced it to better detect and remove unnatural backlinks, like those on websites that buy links.
Google launched its second Helpful Content Update of 2022 on December 6 and completed it on January 12, 2023. It included new factors to the search engine’s classifier.
Google implemented this helpful content update to all languages worldwide. The idea behind this update is the same as the first one.
This algorithm analyzes your website with a couple of classifiers that can identify whether the content developed is helpful. It is a sitewide update which makes it more significant.
A Few Classifiers That Assess the Helpfulness of Content
Unlike the previously discussed Update, Spam Update October 2022 impacts all languages globally. Google released it on October 19 and rolled it out completely on October 21.
Spam Update isn’t a site-wide update, which means it will only affect spammy websites.
Google defines this update as:
“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.”
Google released its third product review update on September 20, 2022, and completed its rollout on September 26.
Like its predecessors, this update aimed to hit low-quality product reviews with low rankings. Note that this product review update was only applied to the English language product reviews.
Google calls thin content that only sums up a host of products, low-quality content. Though Google does not penalize thin product reviews manually or algorithmically, it prefers content that is higher in quality.
Google launched its second Core Update of 2022 on September 12 and completed its release on 26.
Google’s Core Updates are part of the list of its search ranking updates and cause broad changes to its algorithms.
This update sent waves of excitement as Google announced it on Twitter in the SEO community. This September’s Core Update didn’t seem as volatile as the previous Core Updates, including those that rolled out in May 2022.
Google started releasing its Helpful Content Update on Aug 25, 2022 and completely rolled it out on September 9. It is a site-wide update.
The rollout made this update talk of the town in the SEO industry. You might have heard people saying that it would be the end of AI content.
Google considers it its mission to offer searchers the most relevant and optimum search results. But the Helpful Content update was a groundbreaking update that ensures searchers get what they want when they type a query in the search bar.
Google released the fourth product reviews update on July 27 and completed it on September 9.
Google said that the full rollout could take two or three weeks. But, it did so after 6 days, which was refreshing news for all SEOs and business owners.
If we compare this update with the previous product review updates, it had a narrow extent and didn’t impact rankings as substantially as previous ones.
With that being said, different websites had different experiences after google rolled out this update. But its low impact can be seen by the little talk it aroused in the industry.
One of Google’s Core Updates was released on May 25, 2022, and completed on June 9. It was part of the group of updates that Google makes many times each year in its ranking algorithms.
With Core Updates, Google aims to improve its promise to deliver trustworthy and helpful results for users. They are called ‘Core’ updates as they focus on the overall user experience and not only on a single specific factor.
As the name implies, this update is related to product reviews.
Google has written a guideline on writing top-quality product reviews that summarizes what Google prefers when ranking product reviews.
Best Practices to Follow While Trying to Rank Product Reviews
Google released a Page Experience Update for its ranking signals for desktops on 22 February 2022 and completed it on 3rd March.
Optimizing for this ranking factor can help you list your page in top stories carousels without using AMP (accelerated mobile pages) versions.
What distinguishes it from the previous ranking factors is that those ranking factors focused on the experience a user has on your whole website.
While page experience only focuses on the experience a specific page of your site/URL provides to users independent of other pages on your website.
SEO professionals are tasked with attempting to figure out the elements that influence search engine rankings on Google. We have our hand on the nerve of the industry and will keep informing you on the latest Google ranking updates as they launch.
We hope that this piece on Google’s ranking updates has helped you understand the search engine and its expectations from websites. Let’s hope 2023 to be an exciting year for the digital marketing and SEO industry.
Keep coming back to us to know what updates Google releases in 2023 and beyond!
Team DG consists of passionate writers, SEOs, designers, paid marketing specialists, and creative strategists. As a team, we work together to lift businesses and brands from ground-up and push them to new heights. Every new challenge helps us to expand our horizon of knowledge and gain valuable experiences. Team DG leverages those experiences to create result-driven marketing campaigns for brands and help them reach their ambitious goals.
- Team DG
by teamdg
by teamdg
by teamdg
