How Do Google Algorithms Work and What is Their Impact on Positioning?

Do you own a website and try to ensure its proper positioning? So you probably already know everything about Google algorithms. No? In this case, I invite you to read the following analysis.

I direct it mainly to people who want to deepen their knowledge about the basic mechanisms governing the search engine – the algorithms that are most important for website positioning are described.

How do Google Algorithms work?

The search engine algorithm is nothing more than a certain set of rules of conduct that it guides in the process of selecting websites displayed in search results. It is an integral part of this type of software because it organizes the content and allows the user to find what he is looking for.

I do not intend to exhaustively describe all the algorithms created by Google specialists, because first of all many of them introduced only cosmetic changes, and secondly, such an article would have a volume of at least twice as large.

Therefore, I focused on choosing proposals that significantly affect the positioning of websites and are extremely important in working on improving the place in the search engine ranking.

PageRank, a pioneer in his field:

Well, one swallow doesn’t make a spring, and the exception confirms the rule. Although currently the PageRank algorithm, because we are talking about it, is already very quiet, and the indicator based on its operation was finally withdrawn in 2016, it is impossible not to mention it. It was finally the first attempt to organize organic results for the user’s convenience.

Google creators from the very beginning of their existence noticed the need to display a list of websites based on their popularity and frequency of links from other websites.

And it looked like this: Websites received an initial rating (on a scale of 0 to 10), which changed when creating links from other sites.

Highly positioned websites conveyed part of their value to those websites to which they linked in articles.

The final assessment thus depended on the value of the given website and the value obtained thanks to referring to other websites. The quality of links was more important than their quantity.

PageRank, although very efficient, proved to be relatively easy to circumvent, which resulted in websites with low-quality content gaining a high position. Updates and innovative algorithms were needed to improve the situation.

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Panda Algorithm:

The algorithm, whose symbol is a pet loved all over the world (a profession for animal lovers – the name comes from Navneet Panda, a Google engineer) caused considerable turmoil, not to say a revolution in the approach to positioning websites. What are the most important changes introduced by the first pupil of the Google Zoo?

Punishment for duplication of content that came from both external and internal sources (subpages).
Promoting websites that present comprehensive, relevant articles.

Keyword saturation recognition and elimination of low-value content created solely to improve the position in search results,
Promoting useful subpages and a well-described offer.

In short, Panda swept away most content farms or at least forced them to improve the quality of published material.

Actually, from that moment you can talk about a kind of revolution in content marketing – guidelines for texts have become much more restrictive, which was intended to benefit users.

Penguin fights with bad content:

It looks like Google loves to create a sense of delicate cognitive dissonance. Another nice animal struck on many sides acting contrary to the company’s policy. Initiated in 2012, Penguin focused primarily on reducing spam and continuing policies related to the promotion of valuable and relevant content.

However, he introduced the greatest changes in effective link-building. What exactly has changed?

Three factors have gained key importance:

The number, and more precisely, the increase in the number of links to a given website over time. If it seems unnatural (impossible to achieve properly) Google imposes a specific penalty,
Quality of links – a small number of links from good sources has much more power than the enormity of links from suspicious / low-value sites,

Diversification of link sources – it’s good to consider different types of websites: blogs, catalogs, forums, social media, and other places on the web.

Long-tailed hummingbird:

The new algorithm was created to help the user search for answers to complex queries. As a result, he has significantly helped website positioning for long-tail phrases.

In short, the idea was to analyze the query as a whole, and not divide it into individual component phrases. What else did Koliber change?

A new window appeared in the search results, displaying the answer to the user’s question without having to visit the given page.
Local search has become more relevant.
He introduced a mechanism for a much better understanding of the meaning of a given query.

Not so scary pigeon as they paint him:

Admittedly, pigeons in many arouse rather neutral or even negative emotions, but in this case, users should be satisfied. The Pigeon update has introduced further improvements to local search. From this moment Google recognizes the user’s location, without having to add the city in the query.

What do you need to know about this algorithm? First of all, he introduced a combination of map search results and organic search results. This, in turn, greatly increased the importance of accurately supplementing the company’s business card and providing as much useful information as possible to the user.

Mobile revolution with Mobilegeddon:

Responsive websites are the basis for effective online activity. Mobilegeddon caused websites that are not optimized for mobile devices to fall in the ranking and make it more difficult for them to reach new users with their offer.

This, in turn, led to significant improvements in this area – after all, a low position in organic results is a big blow to many projects. Ultimately, as is usually the case with algorithms, the recipient of the content is to use.

The phantom – chief bogey of weak sites:

Phantom is an algorithm that made many website owners and positioning specialists beat faster. It introduces the possibility of imposing very unpleasant penalties, which often hit specific subpages.

A thorough examination of their character turns out to be extremely problematic. It mainly analyzes large, frequently visited websites.

Phantom’s task is to eliminate primarily:

Errors and technical difficulties lead to difficult website operations,
Artificial saturation of texts with key phrases and poor quality of content,
Ads that disrupt the website’s functionality.

Intelligent RankBrain:

Artificial intelligence is more and more boldly entering the sphere of modern technologies, which is why it is not surprising that Google uses it to present users with results maximally tailored to their intentions.

RankBrain is designed to analyze the meaning of the query (especially in the case of long, complex sentences that were not correctly recognized before) and provide answers based on the results of the above analysis.

Opossum and its help for local companies:

Very often, companies have their headquarters outside the city or area in which they operate. Before the introduction of the new algorithm, it was difficult for such companies to position themselves for phrases related to a given city, if the address did not match them. Furthermore, Opossum meant that a real place to provide their services began to count.

Other algorithms worth knowing about:

Google Intrusive Interstitials Mobile Penalty: An algorithm used to penalize websites with full-screen advertisements in the mobile version, which impede the use of the website.

Page Layout: The main functionality of the algorithm is to lower the value of those web portals that display a large number of ads at the top of the page, visible immediately after loading it. In some situations, the presence of such elements means that to find the content you need to scroll the view.

Pirate: An algorithm used to remove results that provide users with illegal content and material protected by copyright.

Payday Loan: The assumed goal of this update is to minimize the value of websites that contain a lot of spam and completely worthless content for the average user.

Summary:

Over the years, Finally, Google has introduced dozens of smaller or larger updates. And for the reason that has made the positioning process of websites extremely demanding and time-consuming.

There can be no clear guidelines or provisions today, compliance with which will certainly lead to the desired goals.

Although the pace of change has recently slowed down. Consequently, the positioner’s work is still based on analytical thinking, intuition,, and constant tracking of information coming from across the ocean.

The purpose of the above text was to sketch the basic framework of the positioning process and understand its essence.