Understanding Google Updates – From Florida to Big Daddy

Google’s commitment towards creating a healthy search environment has meant that this leading search engine frequently updates and reviews its algorithms to meet challenges. Here is a closer look at the updates made since 2003.

November, 2003. Searching on Google was just not the same anymore. Many pages that had for long been topping the results had disappeared, and it seemed like relevancy which had, in effect, become Google’s middle name, was nowhere to be found. Results were way off the mark, to say the very least.

So what had happened? There are many floating theories about what Google changed in this update known as “Florida”. One possibility was that they had put an SEO filter in place, to identify sites that had done more than the acceptable level of SEO work. The theory did not entirely fit in, because there were sites with no SEO work that had been taken off the list, and many sites that had done considerable amount of SEO work stayed on the list. There were other related theories that suggested that SEO Filter was applied only to a few select search terms, which as it is does not make much sense. Google’s preference for informative pages over commercial pages was also cited as a possible reason.

Yet another probability, and a theory that with no obvious flaws like the aforesaid ones, is that Google has different ways to compile lists for different search terms. And this was what seems to have changed with the Florida update. The obvious question is, what governs the different ways? One sound possibility is that Google employs a system where in a few websites with lots of high quality links on them are taken as reference points. The assumption is that, these pages, and those that they link to can be considered worthy of being on top of the results pages.

The veracity of the theories remains unproved, but the fact is Google was quick to bring out their next update – Austin in 2004.

Austin was released amidst lots of expectation, particularly because many people were hoping that it would rectify the damages that Florida had caused. This new Algorithm was a fusion of the Page Rank algorithm, and another called Hilltop which was created as far back as 1999. There were indications that the latter was incorporated into the Florida update.

And the new search algorithm does seem more reliable, when it comes to identifying and getting rid of websites that indulge in spamming and other unethical practices. And Google has been going all out after such sites in fact, in their attempts to make the search results as relevant as possible.

Unlike in the previous update, which seemed harsh on sites that had got SEO done, the opposite seems to be true with this new update. Recently optimized sites, seem to be doing well on the results page. While optimized sites have seen no change, with this update, the method used to calculate Page Rank seems to have changed. For instance, Google seems to be giving more importance to the thematic relevance of inbound links when calculating the Page Rank of a site. What this means is that if you link within your industry, your PR will improve, but if you happen to have links with sites outside of your industry the PR value will be negatively affected.

Google has always given importance to the relevance of content, and Google’s Hilltop Algorithm is adept at identifying sites that lead the way in terms of quality and value of links, and superior content. Superiority of the content is in terms of its readability i.e. the content must have natural flow and there must not be any unnecessary overuse of keywords. The new algorithm also takes into account the contextual relevance of title tags, and the naturalness

Attempting new techniques, trying fresh algorithms point show Google’s attempts at making the search process more relevant for searchers. Needless to say this is a sort of trial-and-error method, but the heartening fact is that Google is making continuous efforts at making amends for any mistakes made.

And Google’s next update Jagger came as part of these continuous efforts at improving existing algorithms. Jagger was announced in 2005 amidst much speculation that carried on about whether or not there was going to be an update after all. Considering the time lapse between these two updates, it was obvious that a lot was going to change this time around.

Post Jagger update, inbound links were given more importance, because it was becoming obvious that websites were just not being judicious in choosing relevant reciprocal links. Even as inbound links are given more importance, the emphasis on having relevant outbound links remains. With Jagger, once again Google has demonstrated its war against spam sites that negatively affect relevancy, and hamper revenue protection and growth. In particular, Google is doing its best to chase away spam Adsense sites which usually just employ some sort of auto content and link generating services and technologies. CSS Spam is yet another growing area of concern that Google is trying to do something about. The same holds true for the growing menace of Blog spam which has almost coincided with the growth and proliferation of the trend of blogging.

The initial response to Jagger was negative, and it took a few weeks for the true colors of Google’s efforts to manifest. And the process of finding ways to evaluate website content better which Jagger began culminated in the next Google update called Big Daddy in 2006. This last update has been different from the others mentioned so far. Unlike the previous updates, Big Daddy was a change at an infrastructural level in terms of the way crawling and indexing of websites is done. And it is very important to not that the Big Daddy update does more than just change the algorithm of Google.

Amongst the various changes affected by this update, the one dealing with links is crucial. Post this update, the links going in and out of the website would be used to figure out how many of the pages in the website would be included in the index. In other words, a site must have a good number of trustworthy links into and out of the site in order to have all its pages indexed. Many or even all of the pages will be removed for those sites that don’t score very well on this count, but had all their pages indexed before the update. This also means that reciprocal and off-topic links will stop to matter as much as they did earlier.

With this change in the style of indexing, Google has made it possible to index more websites, even if it can’t ensure that ever page of every site will be covered. At the end of the day, from a user perspective they get more number of relevant results, which makes the search a lot more comprehensive.

Big Daddy also attempted to tackle the problem of redirects. The instruction for webmasters is to use the 301 redirect which tells Google the page or a site has been permanently moved. Leaving the content available on two different locations is as unacceptable as dropping one page and replacing it with the other. The use of 301 or 302 redirects shows that a certain level of consistency, and of course commitment.

The introduction of the supplemental index is yet another addition which has attracted much attention. This additional index is meant for sites that Google considers not worthy of its main index. There are many reasons why a site may be sent to this secondary index, but the result would be that when a searcher types in a general search term it will be almost certain that he/she will not be directed to your website.

Big Daddy, it is said, will also take care of the problem of canonicalization which occurred because search engines saw a single site with two different domain names as two different sites. Post the Big Daddy update, the problem of duplicate content will no longer exist.

In conclusion, it must be said that through all the updates from Google one thing never changes – their core agenda. Creating a search environment that addresses first and foremost the needs of the end-user. Every one of the updates mentioned, and by the looks of it, one can safely say that every update that will come in the times ahead, will work to carry out this agenda.