Jan 19, 2022 06:00:00

Here's a visualization of how Google has changed its search algorithm over the past year & what its impact is.

Google is constantly evolving its search engine algorithms to improve its user experience (UX). The ranking of

Google search results is often changed due to algorithm changes, and 'when and what algorithm changes Google made' is useful for website inflow analysis. A diagram summarizing the contents of such Google algorithm changes from January to December 2021 has been released.

An Overview of Google's Algorithm Updates in 2021 [Infographic] | Social Media Today
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/an-overview-of-googles-algorithm-updates-in-2021-infographic/617013/

Below is a diagram showing the algorithm changes Google made from January to December 2021.

First of all, about the first half.

In February, we introduced '

Passage Ranking (Passage Indexing)' in the English version of the search engine. This is a mechanism to evaluate and rank only a part (Passage) of the text content in the page, not the entire page.

In addition, Google search has an 'emphasized snippet' that extracts the 'answer' to the search word from the web page and displays it at the top of the Google search results. In March, the ranking of the pages quoted in the highlight snippet made a mysterious descent and recovered three weeks later. Google doesn't say anything about this.

In April, an algorithm update called Product Review Update was carried out. This is an algorithm change to appreciate pages with high quality product reviews and display them at the top of search results.

And in June and July, Google carried out a core update. Core updates are major updates that occur several times a year. Overall, in the June-July 2021 update, dictionaries, word-of-mouth sites, regional information sites, official sites, etc. have been given preferential treatment.

Also, in the June Page Experience Update , Google's UX index ' Core Web Vitals ' was introduced and the AMP badge was abolished . These also affect Google search results and top stories in Google News. In addition, in June, we updated anti-spam measures for Google search and image search.

The second half is as follows.

As mentioned earlier, a core update was made in July, as well as an anti-spam update on links.

In August, the title generation system was updated, changing the method of generating article titles displayed in search results. Specifically, before the update, the title was generated in a form that depends on the query, but after the update, it is generated in a form that reflects the contents of the entire page. In addition, elements other than the title tag are being actively used by title generation.

In November, we carried out a third core update and an anti-spam update. In addition, a function to automatically translate search results has been added in some countries including India. Then, in December, the second product review update in 2021 announced that 'visual and audio content that enhances the reliability of reviews' and 'links to multiple sellers' will be emphasized.