What Changes With Each Algorithm Update

Our team at Ventura Web Design & Marketing is dedicated to keeping your website up to date. We actively research algorithm updates when they are released and analyze your website to see which changes are necessary.

Below is a guide to each Google algorithm update beginning in 2020. Bookmark this page or check back frequently as we continuously add updates.

January

February

March

JANUARY 2020

January 2020 Core Update

Estimated Rollout: January 13, 2020

What changed?

The January 2020 Core Update was announced, per Google’s new initiative beginning in 2019 to be more transparent with their algorithm updates. They’ve aimed to announce updates before rolling them out, and so far this seems to be true.

The update, according to Google, was a broad initiative to better ensure quality content for people seeking information.  This means Google continues to push content creators and websites to evaluate what they’re publishing in order to give people the best “answer” possible when searching.

Some SERP layout changes were included in the update as well. Google decided to include a website’s favicon next to its result, and display the site’s breadcrumbs in lieu of the specific URL. For example, instead of https://www.venturawebdesign.com/responsive-vs-mobile-website-design/ appearing just above the meta description, this displays:

What does this mean?

It’s up to specialists to look at the data and adjust where necessary. Google has indicated that a drop in rankings following this update isn’t necessarily a penalty, per se. But rather a drop in rankings indicates that your information isn’t meeting certain standards as well as it used to according to previous standards.

You will need to evaluate your content and update it to ensure it’s high-quality and providing value to whoever is reading it. This includes showing you are a trustworthy source, proofing your content, presenting your information in a readable and useable way, and more.

Favicon Update

Estimated Rollout: January 24, 2020

What Changed?

Remember the favicon update on January 13? Google rolled this back so favicons no longer show up in the SERPs.

Snippet & Deduplication Update

Estimated Rollout: January 22, 2020

What changed?

Featured snippets that were once known as position zero are now included in the main organic search results and known as position one. URLs for the snippets are no longer displayed (i.e. duplicated) anywhere else in the core search results. For example, if a website held positions zero and one for an article, following the update they’ll only hold position one.

This update also included changes to whether images are deduplicated. Images aren’t impacted by this as long as the URL for the image is different from the URL associated with the text of the snippet.

What does this mean?

The purpose of this update, according to Google, is to declutter the search results page so that people aren’t seeing multiple the same information more than once.

Website owners can choose to alter their SEO strategy accordingly. For example, depending on the strategy, snippets can be opted out of. This would mean that websites would be competing for position 2, instead of positions zero or one prior to the update. This can be done primarily by using the “nosnippet” tag.

Be sure to carefully consider your online strategy before making drastic changes. It’s recommended you discuss this change with a specialist to avoid making mistakes that could penalize you on the Google search result pages.

FEBRUARY 2020

Unconfirmed Local & Maps Update

Estimated Rollout: February 14, 2020

What changed?

Neither officially announced nor confirmed by Google, many websites experienced movement in rankings and traffic fluctuations during/after February 14. Most of these changes impacted local SEO in Google Maps and Google local packs.

What does this mean?

It’s speculated that the unofficial February 14 update was an adjustment to the January 2020 Core Update. Many SEOs sat with the local update for a few days in order to make changes once the dust settled.

MARCH 2020

Nofollow Update

Estimated Rollout: March 1, 2020

What changed?

Prior to the March 1 update, Google treated nofollow tags as law. Nofollow links weren’t crawled, however, that’s changed. Now, nofollow tags are mere suggestions and there’s a possibility Google will visit those links.

What does this mean?

You may want to review how you’ve set up your website to be indexed. Nofollow tags are sometimes used to prevent crawlers from looking at account pages or pages without value to visitors. However, maybe a noindex or meta norobots tag would be more appropriate for your purposes. This change may impact rankings depending on what Google crawls and indexes moving forward.

On January 22, 2020, Google announced via Twitter that they have rolled out an important core algorithm update impacting the relationship between featured snippets and organic results. Naturally, this update announcement caused quite a bit of stir in the SEO community and sparked many questions.

What is a Google featured snippet?

Featured snippets, also known as answer boxes, are search results that appear in the very first position on a search results page (in a box) below any ads that may be present. This is also known as position zero.

The purpose of a featured snippet, from Google’s perspective, is to directly answer a user’s question or address their inquiry in the best way possible so that a user doesn’t need to keep searching. From an SEO perspective, “winning” a featured snippet gains you more visibility and likely traffic to your website.

The coveted position zero gives your brand and business more exposure should you be able to address an inquiry better than your competitors.

How did featured snippets work before the January 2020 update?

Even though Google announced the featured snippet update on January 22, it’s likely that the update began rolling out several days before.

Prior to the update, websites that earned a featured snippet also had their site appear in the organic results beneath the snippet if appropriate. This meant that websites could potentially score two spots on the first page of search results for a single inquiry or question from a user.

How will featured snippets work after the January 2020 update?

The purpose of the January update is to improve the user’s experience by removing duplicates from the search engine results. Websites that have a featured snippet for a specific inquiry, and appear in the organic results for that inquiry, now only hold on to their snippet and lose their organic result. Websites can no longer score two spots for a single inquiry or question from a user.

How does the January 2020 update impact me? Do I need to adjust my SEO strategy?

The change to featured snippets and organic results has understandably stirred up a lot of questions and panic amongst ecommerce business owners and website owners.

Because of the widespread prevalence and reliance on Google to find information, users have gotten used to its patterns and adjust their online behavior accordingly. For example, users are used to seeing advertisements directly above snippets and organic results. If users are disinterested in ads, they will scroll past them in order to reach the results they’re looking for. Some users even prefer to skip past the featured snippet and choose the first organic result to get a better understanding of the information they’re seeking out – even if the featured snippet and first organic result are the same.

If you owned a featured snippet and first organic result for a keyword, users who skipped over the snippet were likely still visiting your site anyway. However, because of the most recent update, you may not own the first organic result anymore. Your competitor may own it. So even though you have the best answer to someone’s question, your competitor may see more traffic.

Although this update means different things for different online businesses and websites, it’s likely going to require some re-evaluation at the very least. Because the update is so new and we are still studying the impacts, there are several strategies to consider.

Should I opt to deoptimize or tag my content with “nosnippet”?

Deoptimizing your content is definitely a risky move and we recommend discussing it with a specialist before committing to this strategy. If your content used to rank for both position zero and position one, and it would be better for your site to not hold the snippet, you could opt to lose your snippet in favor of hanging onto position one.

There are a few ways to do this. You could either apply a “nosnippet” meta tag to the content you no longer want to appear in position zero. A “nosnippet” tag means that your content won’t be included in the answer boxes, even if it’s a qualifying answer box winner. Or you could play around with keywords to try and lose the spot. The latter choice of course is riskier than the former. Intentionally losing the snippet through content rewrites, keyword research, and edits will be very time consuming and you could harm your organic rankings.

Deoptimizing and forfeiting the featured snippet feels and seems like the opposite of core SEO values and practices. It’s also likely a drastic measure to take in order to stabilize after the update. You’ll have to consider whether it’s better for you or your competitors to hold positions zero and one.

However, it’s very important to note that there are other strategies aside from rewriting your content or using the “nosnippet” tag to avoid position zero. You’re going to need to do some research to determine how well your snippet would perform in the organic search results should you implement a “nosnippet” tag.

The Google algorithms that determine how and why a website makes it to the top of the search results mostly focus on whether content provides a useful and valuable user experience. Does the content answer a question? Is the content easy to access and read? Is the inquiry addressed?

These are the guidelines that you can use to develop a more broad strategy towards acclimating to the January 2020 update. If you focus on the needs of your customers, clients, and users, and you’re actively providing them with the best online experience you can, you’re more likely to make Google happy as well.

To determine which strategy works best for you and your ecommerce business, we recommend reaching out to us for a free consultation today. We will take a look at your online traffic and performance to determine which move is the best for you.