Major Google Search Algorithm Updates of 2021 Intended to bring a better user experience
As a leading search engine, Google is always on the move to hunt and wipe out low-performing and not-fully-optimized sites with thinner and/or duplicate content, keyword stuffing, low dwell time, bad or broken links, lacking ‘mobile-friendly’ label, etc. Well, it’s not a deadly monster for the websites following its updated algorithms.
The new Google updates provide more functionality for those website owners and online marketers looking to manage their business on the go.
Passage Indexing (US/English)
Closer to passage ranking, Google rolled out “passage indexing” for US/English queries. Initially, Google estimated this update would impact 7% of search queries.
Feature Snippet Drop & Recovery
MozCast measured a 40% day-over-day drop in SERPs with Featured Snippets (heavily focused on short queries) and their mysterious return to their original state after three weeks.
Product Reviews Update
Google, with this update, started focusing more on review quality. It announced to reward in-depth and high-level product reviews over thinner and spammed product reviews.
Core Update
Applied to all markets and search indices, Google announced core updates to its ranking algorithm affecting SEO visibility of sites with thinner, low-quantity content.
Spam Updates
Google released two spam updates on June 23rd and 28th. It was unclear how the two were connected or what specifically was impacted (no apparent impact on overall rankings.)
Page Experience Update
Google rolled out Core Web Vitals, which significantly impacted organic search results and News results (including Top Stories).
Core Update
It was just a follow-up to the June Core Update rollout by Google. The June and July Core Updates are apparently connected with July’s update less impactful than June’s update.
Link spam update
Google reportedly rolled out this broad algorithm update across multiple languages.
Page Title Rewrites
Google introduced a new system of generating titles for web pages. It provides the best titles for documents in search results and describes the pages regardless of the particular query.
Spam Update
Google announced another broad spam update that isn’t explicitly called a “link spam.” Unfortunately, Google didn’t provide enough info about the type of spam (content, search, link, etc.)
Core Update
The third Core Update of the year, affecting the SEO visibility of websites among various categories, especially eCommerce sites. This core update depends on satisfying user intent.
Product Reviews Update
Google has rolled out the second Product Reviews Update of the year, potentially impacting service reviews. However, it will affect only English-language pages and take three weeks to complete.
Now, as you get familiar with the most significant Google algorithm updates, you can get your website(s) continuously seen on the SERPs (search engine results pages) without any setback.
Closing Thoughts
Are you struggling to get your site’s visibility to hit the first page of SERPs? Hire our dedicated SEO experts, and Google will start loving your website to be ranked on top. ArhamSoft (Pvt) Ltd., can help in your SEO efforts because we have hands-on experience in this domain and genuinely understand that Google only prioritizes the sites following Core Web Vitals along with other updates, as shown in the above infographics.
Read more about the Core Web Vitals:
