Google algorithm updates (updated to September 2021)

Update Date: September 4, 2021

The first two weeks decreased the Baidu algorithm September update with official confirmation & name. Correspondingly, of course, we should also outline the Google algorithm update. Google has announced more updates to the algorithm, so I do not remember if I won’t summarize it. For English SEO, you can refer to it, especially when the natural search traffic suddenly drops significantly at a particular time. Generally, it is punished by a specific algorithm. Checking the algorithm’s online timeline may help diagnose the problem.

Google has not confirmed it in some form, but the SEO community has observed more updates. Especially in the past two years, after Matt Cutts left Google, Google’s announcement of algorithm updates has tended to be conservative, and there is little official news. Those that have not been confirmed will not be listed.

Like Baidu’s algorithm update, this page will continue to be updated, and new algorithms will be added when they are online.

The actual time spent writing this post was much longer than I expected, and it took more than 10 hours to finish it. Even if they don’t link to this post, students who reprint and plagiarise, please indicate that the source is SEO’s daily post. Don’t pretend to be your original.

Link spam update

Online time: July 26, 2021

Affected websites: all, all languages ​​in the world

Algorithms for cracking down on low-quality and spam links that violate Google’s quality guidelines, such as joint project links without the no-follow tag, guest blog post links, etc., and other more spam must also be cracked down, such as PBN.

Usually, this kind of attack on links ignores these links, and there is no other special punishment. The previously established spam links no longer work for websites that use spam links, and their ranking declines. It seems that the effect is the same as the penalty, but the mechanism is not a penalty.

Google issued a post that briefly talked about the points that should be paid attention to in the link and announced the algorithm update at the end. The update will last about two weeks.

Core algorithm update in July 2021

Online time: July 1, 2021

Affected sites: all

As Google announced when the core algorithm was updated in June, in July 2021, the update was launched on July 1, and the ranking of No. 2 changed drastically and then quickly calmed down. Another wave of ranking changes on the 9th. The number algorithm update is complete.

From the data I have seen, the traffic on Amazon.com has dropped during this update, and most of the traffic on AliExpress has risen. So it looks like some callback in the core algorithm update in June.

Spam update

Online time: June 23 and June 28, 2021

Affected websites: pages in all languages ​​around the world, including ordinary text search and image search.

Google released the so-called spam update on Twitter, an update for spam, but did not specify what type of spam, spam link? Cheating content? Automatically generated content? What is crawled or collected? It’s all possible.

This spam update was launched in two rounds, on June 23 and 28, respectively, and both were completed within one day.

Page experience update

Online time: June 16, 2021

The Google page experience update, which a long time ago, finally went live on June 16 after a long delay. However, this page experience update is a slow process and is not expected to be completed until the end of August.

Update: The page experience update is completed on September 3, 2021.

Core algorithm update in June 2021

Online time: June 2, 2021

Affected sites: all

In June 2021, Google’s core algorithm update was launched on the 2nd and completed on June 12. However, judging from the data of ranking monitors, June 4, 5 and 11, 12 have more rankings.

As in the past, Google did not provide details. As a result, SEOs cannot know which factors have been adjusted, but they know that they should “improve the overall quality of the website.” According to the data I have checked, the search traffic of most mainstream shopping websites such as AliExpress continues to decline, but the traffic on Amazon has increased significantly. I will write a post the next day to elaborate on my observations and thoughts.

When Google announced the core algorithm update in June 2021, it also revealed that there would be another core algorithm update in July.

Product Reviews Update

Launch time: April 8, 2021, and the launch will be completed on April 22.

Affected websites: Currently, only English websites are available. Improve the ranking of high-quality product reviews written by experts with in-depth analysis and original research.

Google specifically released a blog post to announce this product review update. The goal of the algorithm is to improve the ranking of high-quality review content. However, from another point of view, it also hits low-quality product review content. In Google’s words, those are just a summary of a few products and then add links to the Amazon affiliate program. Content. As far as I can see, this type of page has performed very well when searching for shopping terms in the past two years, and it is now taking a hit.

The SEO industry generally reflects that the scope of this update is not tiny and may even be comparable to the core algorithm update. According to the data I have seen, real e-commerce websites have benefited. On the other hand, the search performance of information websites that specialize in comments and rely on joint signing plans for profit has generally declined.

Paragraph ranking update (Passage Ranking)

Online time: February 11, 2021

Affected websites: Initially, Affected websites will launch US and English websites globally and in various languages ​​around the 15th. Affect 7% of query terms.

Google announced this update in advance in October 2020, which was called “passage indexing” when it was first announced. However, on February 12, 2021, Twitter announced that Twitter launched the February update on February 11, and Twitter changed the name to “passage ranking”.

When indexing and ranking, the paragraph ranking algorithm considers the entire page’s content and focuses on a particular paragraph to understand the relevance of a specific section; in this way, the answer to some queries is buried in a specific paragraph on the page. Google can also find it precisely.