SEO has been an important criterion since the beginning of search engine. This exceptional strategy has helped many business owners to save their business and it has also helped them in attracting more customers to their products and services.
Having a strategic and clean SEO strategy can certainly bring tons of benefits to your business. Although the internet and social media websites were filled with hundreds of “SEO is dead” posts a few years ago, the SEO industry is still alive and its reputation has significantly increased in the recent times.
Reports indicate that the worth of SEO industry is over $65 million and it will keep on rising in the upcoming years. Many small and large-scale industries are currently using SEO as a marketing strategy, as they have realized that search engine optimization and digital marketing has a great power to transform their venture into a booming business.
Google has always surprised us with its major algorithm updates; and these updates have a tremendous impact on the search results. Some experts even say that Google makes approximately 500 tweaks to their algorithms every year. Keeping the numbers aside, here are top 3 Google updates we saw in 2016.
Mobile-Friendly Algorithm Boost
Google launched a mobile-friendly ranking algorithm in April 2015, which was also known as “Mobilegeddon”. Just under a year after of its launch, Google announced that they are increasing the effects of this algorithm in order to benefit the mobile-friendly pages in the mobile search results of Google. This boost was rolled out in March 2016, but its impact was not as significant as it were during the initial launch of mobile-friendly ranking algorithm.
Penguin 4.0
The end of the mobile-friendly ranking algorithm made way to Penguin 4.0, which was introduced on September 23, 2016. Many SEO analysts considered Penguin 4.0 as the gentler Penguin algorithm, as this update devalued the bad links rather than penalizing the sites. Penguin 4.0’s second phase was the recovery period, where the websites affected by the preceded updates of Penguin finally saw some recovery.
Possum
SEO analysts noted a major shakeup in Google Maps and local pack in September 2016, even though Google confirmed the launch of the Possum update much later. Many analysts assumed that this might be the largest update in the local SEO world since the launch of Pigeon in the year 2014, although the algorithm has not yet affected the market that much.
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