Goodbye, Google Toolbar PageRank In 2016, Google confirmed that it would be removing Toolbar PageRank. Google would still continue using PageRank data internally within the ranking algorithm. Only the external PageRank values shown in the Toolbar would soon go away completely. The end of Toolbar PageRank was inevitable by...

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Google adds landing page load time to Quality Score In 2008, Google AdWords confirmed a new addition to Quality Score: landing page load time. Google said they did this for two reasons: First, users have the best experience when they don’t have to wait a long time for landing pages to...

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Google Webmaster Tools adds user administration In 2012, Google Webmaster Tools added a much-wanted feature: user administration. Site owners could finally give people access to their Google Webmaster Tools account without having to share their own usernames and passwords or make them go through the verification process. Site...

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Matt Cutts confirms Vince, calls it a ‘minor change’ In 2009, Google’s Matt Cutts created a video to answer many questions about a recent “brand push” in the search results that SEOs and webmasters had noticed, starting in late February. Cutts confirmed the “minor change,” adding that Google’s ranking...

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Sheryl Sandberg named Facebook Chief Operating Officer In 2008, Facebook announced Sheryl Sandberg as its new Chief Operating Officer. At the time, Sandberg was Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations, responsible for online sales of its advertising and publishing products. Sandberg joined Google in 2001. Sandberg...

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Google Panda name revealed In 2011, Google’s Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts revealed that Google Panda was the true name of the update that was informally referred to as Farmer when it launched Feb. 24. “Well, we named it internally after an engineer, and his name is...

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Google publishes Search quality rating guidelines In 2013, Google published Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines. Previous versions of the document had been leaked many times prior to this. But this was the first time Google went public with its document. It detailed how Google’s search quality raters –...

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R.I.P., DMOZ In 2017, DMOZ – The Open Directory Project that used human editors to organize websites — announced it was closing as of March 14. By this time, DMOZ had been mostly forgotten as a resource. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that it took so long. DMOZ was...

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Google expands mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal In 2015, Google announced it would expand its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal, beginning April 21. This algorithmic change would have a “significant impact” in the mobile search results, impacting all languages worldwide, Google said. However, when April came,...

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