Google New SEO Update 2019
Google continuously changes its algorithm in order to provide relevant and helpful search results, and SEOs and marketers must stay abreast of these updates as they could significantly affect their websites’ rankings.
Here are the most significant Google updates of 2019 that were either widely anticipated or came as surprises.
1. Keyword Research
Google makes thousands of changes each year to its search algorithm, called core updates. These updates have a profound impact on search results and can cause fluctuations in rankings. While core updates typically target specific industries or keywords, they could affect websites of all industries.
This was a wide-reaching core update that affected multiple websites, yet was particularly devastating to those operating within health and wellness industries – thus earning itself the nickname Medic Update.
The RankBrain update was intended to enhance search results by employing artificial intelligence technology for query processing and context interpretation, making this update particularly effective at favoring sites with high-quality, holistic content. This update proved incredibly advantageous for these websites.
This was a fundamental update that recognized websites with expertise-authority-trust qualities, especially those related to YMYL keywords (Your Money or Your Life). Furthermore, video carousels were added to search results pages as a ranking factor and page speed became a ranking factor for mobile searches.
2. On-Page Optimization
Google’s core algorithm can be complex, yet their intentions are clear: to provide searchers with accurate and useful results. Google updates aim to eliminate low-quality content that fills up SERPs while competing with your business’s site.
The Caffeine update marked an important upgrade for Google’s data center and index system, providing faster searching with fresher results and increasing trust with established brands.
Bigdaddy update was another significant upgrade, providing Google with improved capabilities to filter out spammy link-building tactics more effectively.
The June 2019 core update aimed to reward high-quality content while mitigating unnatural links’ effects on website rankings. Announced on June 2, the update took approximately five days to fully roll out during which Sistrix, RankRanger and SearchMetrics all experienced visibility fluctuations from it.
3. Link Building
Google has made consistent adjustments to their algorithm in order to provide more pertinent search results, some with minor effects while others having more lasting impacts on rankings.
This update aimed to enhance Google’s results by eliminating sites with low-quality content from SERPs, effectively filtering out spammy links while giving an advantage to sites with good-quality content.
The Fred update targeted thin ads-centric content by using data from Google quality raters to filter it from search results pages (SERPS). Soon thereafter came Panda, with its focus on eliminating content farms from top rankings while giving reputable websites an increase in rankings.
This update saw significant modifications to how Google considered link quality and related factors, altering SERPs for keywords with mixed messages such as YoYL (Yes-My-Your-Letter), rewarding pages with expert and thorough content and rewarding E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) as an indicator for relevance.
4. Content Creation
Core search algorithm updates typically occur a few times every year and can result in substantial rankings fluctuations, often impacting niche industries disproportionately and even providing SEOs with gains for certain keywords after such updates have taken effect.
The March 2019 Core Update focused heavily on Your Money or Your Life queries and provided rewards for trustworthy, high-quality content for these queries as well as pages that comprehensively addressed users’ intent.
Google recently implemented its “passage ranking” update, designed to help improve page rankings for questions that require direct answers. Search engines use passage analysis on pages in order to rank their position for specific queries by looking at which passages provide answers.
The Fred update targeted thin, ad-focused content and used quality rater data to remove low-quality results from SERPs. As a result, several days of heavy ranking flux ensued, with MozCast measuring temperature reaching 97degF on October 4. Additionally, Google penalized mobile websites using interstitials such as cookies, legal verification, logins or banners with interstitials as a penalty for low-quality results in SERPs.