This year will always be known as when people began introspection, calming down, and focusing less on business and more on the family. But despite the COVID-19 epidemic, the business must continue, which has coincided with SEO and several Google algorithm updates throughout the year.
From major updates to machine learning efforts with BERT, conversion indexing (or is it conversion ranking?), Upcoming Google page experience updates, and many unconfirmed changes – we wouldn’t call 2020 a slow year Google’s search algorithm.
Major Google updates for January, May, and December
January 2020 Core Update: Google began rolling out in early 2020 with the first significant update of the year, the January 2020 major update, which began on January 13, 2020. While most significant updates take two weeks to roll out fully, Google reported as of January 16 that it was mostly rolled out. Like many significant updates, the January 2020 core update was huge and affected a lot of sites.
May 2020 core update: After few months, we had the next core update. After speculation, Google might not release an update during the epidemic, but it did. The next major update was the May 2020 core update, released on May 4, 2020. The deployment took approximately two weeks and was completed on May 18, 2020. This update was larger than the January 2020 update; some called it a complete monster.
December 2020 core update: On December 3, 2020, Google released the major December 2020 update. The update was released just after Black Friday and the Cyber Monday shopping season, but before the holidays, many in the industry upset many. We saw significant spikes in this update on December 4 and 10 and officially closed on December 16, 2020. According to some reports, this update was even more extensive than the May 2020 core update.
Google BERT applies to all queries.
In 2019, Google launched BERT for 10% of all queries. This changed in 2020 when it is now used for almost 100% of all English-language searches. Google said on the incident that BERT helped improve search results by 7% for “specific queries.”
We learned that Google’s efforts to integrate BERT into search are named DeepRank – a project that Google probably started back in 2017. Google has expanded its use of BERT in many areas, including fact-checking as well as story matching.
Passage Indexing
Google introduced passage indexing, which should be called passage rating during a search on the event. Snippet indexing helps Google highlight specific snippets of content on a page and rank those parts of your Google search pages. According to Google, this will help pages that are poorly optimized for search. Google has not changed the way content is indexed, but rather how it will rank that content.
Google also stated that snippet-based indexing would affect 7% of all language searches when deployed entirely globally. We expected it to launch in 2020, but it has not been launched yet. So expect it in early 2021.
Page experience update & core web vitals
In May 2020, Google announced a shiny new set of ranking factors – the Google Page Experience Update. It includes a number of signals, including old signals such as Mobile optimized update, Page Speed update, HTTPS Rank Boost, Interstitial Introspective Ad Penalty, and Safe Browsing Penalty, as well as new Google Web Core metrics. Primary web metrics include the largest contentful paint (LCP), first contentful delay (FID), and cumulative layout shift. We have obtained a guide to the basics of the internet for you to learn more.
When it launches in May 2021, Google will no longer serve AMP pages only in the Top Stories carousel, but also pages that do well with those ratings.
On the other hand, this new page experience update will only apply to mobile ratings, not computers. Another exciting aspect may be the visual indicators that Google may launch in May 2021.
Other changes, updates, tweaks, or bugs in the Google algorithm
And one more thing: we had many unconfirmed Google algorithm updates, some of which were very large, and some were confirmed. In August, Google had a bug with search results that messed things up for some time. We may also have a local search error, which Google has confirmed.
Other search changes announced by Google include:
New advances in the understanding of AI-driven language include a new spell-checking algorithm that incorporates the ability to index specific individual pieces from web pages and new techniques to help people find a broader range of results.
The Google Maps update includes detailed operational information on employment and detailed information on COVID-19 related health and safety precautions for businesses. Users will soon find information about a restaurant, store, or company in Live View using AR.
Users can use the microphone icon in the Google search bar or assistant to ask, “What song is this?” Or “Search for a song.” They can then start humming for 10-15 seconds to get the result for the song.
New lenses and AR features in Google search make it possible for users to find (and even style) products as they browse the internet. With augmented reality, Google allows users to travel to retail showrooms virtually.
Finally, duplex technology is now asking businesses to automatically update user data, such as store opening hours and takeout parameters in search and maps. This year, according to Google, Duplex has been used to create more than three million updates for businesses such as pharmacies, restaurants, and grocery stores, which have been viewed more than 20 billion times on maps and in search.
Tips to Get Higher PageRank On Google in 2021
1. Minimize JS and CSS files.
If you run your website with the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will receive a notification that your CSS and JS files are shrinking in size. This means that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of these files, you can improve your site’s loading speed.
If you are good with the WordPress theme, you can check the guides provided by Google and make some manual improvements. If not, there are plugins to help you achieve this goal; The most popular of these is AutoPetzyme, which can help optimize the CSS, JS, and even HTML of your WordPress site.
2. Use the advanced caching mechanism with the caching plugin.
WordPress caching plugins (such as the W3 Total Cache) has been around for a long time, making it easier to deal with the complex task of adding caching rules to your website elements. Combining these plugins with advanced caching engines like Varnish can help you improve your site’s loading speed and ultimately speed up WordPress significantly.
3. Use a CDN.
People visiting your site belong to different places globally, and of course, site loading speed will vary if visitors are far from what is hosted on your site. Several CDNs (content delivery networks) help reduce website loading speed for visitors from different countries. CDN stores a copy of your website in various data centers located in different locations. The primary function of a CDN is to serve a web page to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are some of the most popular CDN services.
4. Enable GZIP compression.
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the internet, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce bandwidth usage, and the time it takes to reach your site. GZIP compresses various files, so whenever a visitor tries to access your site; Their browser must unpack the website first. This process reduces bandwidth usage to a large extent.
You can either use a plugin like PageSpeed Ninja that enables GZIP compression or add the following code to your .htaccess file.