To expand the business digitally, every business is looking forward to building its own website, and hence, thousands of websites are being created on a daily basis. Since for any business, the ranking of a website matters a lot, Google too, makes changes to its search algorithms frequently. Here are the influential Google Algorithm Updates that are most useful and crucial for the ranking of your website in Google searches:

1. Google Panda Update: Google rolled out the Panda Update in February 2011. This algorithm Update has been the most powerful since the time it was introduced. This Update makes sure that any website which is already good at the SERPs, does not have any poor quality, spun or copied content. If there is any website with such flaws, Google automatically reduces the ranking of those websites. The Update also helps the website with quality content go up in the rankings. So clearly, to fight the Google Panda Update, you must get rid of the duplicate content on your website.

2. Google Penguin Update: The next major update from Google was introduced in April 2012, i.e. Google Penguin Update. Initially known as the webspam algorithm update, the Penguin Update targets the websites with low-quality and spammy backlinks and reduces their Google ranking. In this way, Google helps in the higher ranking of websites with trustworthy and relevant inbound links.

3. Google Pirate Update: The Google Pirate Update was released in August 2012. The Update deranks the website with pirated content and backlinks. This Update restricts the website that hosts the copyrighted and pirated content, like movies, music, ebooks, as well as software, or the ones which have received the copyright infringement reports under Google’s DMCA system, from ranking higher in the Google searches.

4. Google Hummingbird Update: This Update was introduced in August 2013. Like the hummingbird, this Update is responsible for faster and accurate search results. Google’s Humming Bird Update targets on providing better searches for the users by understanding the intent of the search and by not, specifically, going for the keywords. This lets the users enter the searches more naturally, and the website with the best match content and the ‘intent’ of the searches, appear up in the searches.

5. Google Pigeon Update: Google released the Pigeon Update in July 2014. The Update is crucial for the search result based on location and distance. The Update provides more accurate and more relevant searches, and ties Google’s local search algorithm to their web algorithm, more closely. In this case, SEO is used to rank local and non-local Google results.

6. Google Mobile-Friendly Update: This is a mobile-friendly ranking algorithm, which was introduced by Google in April 2015. As the name suggests, the Update helps in the better ranking of the mobile-friendly web pages, in the mobile search results. The Mobile-Friendly Update is also known by other names including mobilegeddon, mobilepocalyse, mopocalypse and mobocalypse. This is a page-level-factor, and even a single web page from a website, which is mobile friendly, can be ranked in the mobile searches.

7. Google RankBrain Algorithm: Introduced in October 2015, this Update is the machine-learning AI system, that helps Google to decipher and understand the meaning of one of the rare queries and provide relevant results. The Rank Brain Update includes a query processing as well as ranking component and is able to learn from the previous processes, improving itself for the next processes. This Update is the third most important ranking factor of Google.

8. Google Possum Update: Google’s Possum Update was launched in September 2016. The Possum Update is the name for the various changes in Google’s local ranking filter and works for the local business listings in the SERP results. The search results in the Possum Update depends on the physical location of the user. The closer the business is to the user’s physical location, the high the website will be ranked in the searches. The Possum Update also gives different results for different keywords and even includes a similar type of businesses located outside the city, in the searches.

9. Google Fred Update: Released in March 2018, Fred is Google’s Algorithm that targets at the websites which violate Google’s webmaster guidelines, and the ones having the poor quality content. The Update works to penalize the website with heavy ad monetization tactics and which are built to generate ad or affiliate revenue. To avoid hitting by this algorithm, you must ensure that your website is following the webmaster guidelines, and use quality-content while targetting the revenue through ads on the website.

So these are the major Google Updates that boost or reduces the ranking of a website. The basis for hitting by any of those Google Updates can be poor quality content, copied content, keyword stuffing, spammy backlinks, thin content, ad-centred and affiliate heavy content, etc. So make sure to update your website, accordingly, to avoid hitting by any of the mentioned Updates and help your website with better SEO.