SEOs upset over Google dropping attribution in featured snippets In 2019, SEOs were not happy about a Google featured snippet format that didn’t immediately show the source of the content. For the Found on the web card, searchers had to click to expand the featured snippet and then...

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Google unleashes the Panda algorithm In 2011, Google released an algorithm update that would eventually become known as the Google Panda Update. Google had been facing mounting criticism over content farms earning top rankings in Google with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. The Panda algorithm was Google’s response. The change...

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Google penalizes Natural News In 2017, Google confirmed that a controversial alternative medicine website was delisted because of a webmaster guidelines violation, not because of its political views. Natural News, a “pro-Trump” news site, claimed it was banned for its political views. However, Google’s John Mueller said the site...

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Google page experience update for desktop rolls out In 2022, Google began a nine-day rollout of the desktop version of its page experience update. Page experience was made up of several Google search ranking factors, including the mobile-friendly update, Page Speed Update, the HTTPS ranking boost, the intrusive interstitials penalty, safe browsing penalty...

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Google Search Console sends alerts for big drops in clicks In 2019, Google Search Console started sending notifications when it detected a “substantial drop” in clicks from Google search results to a website when compared to the previous week’s data. It read: “Search Console analyzed your performance report and...

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Google stops supporting meta news keywords tag In 2018, we learned that Google had quietly dropped support for the news meta keywords tag. Google did not announce this change, which had actually happened months earlier. It was Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller who confirmed this on Twitter: “It looks like we...

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Google removes ads from right side of search results In 2016, Google removed ads from the right side of its desktop search results (with two exceptions: Product Listing Ad boxes and Knowledge panel ads) in all languages, worldwide. Google Ads would only appear at the top and/or...

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Yahoo stops using Google search In 2004, Yahoo stopped using Google’s web search results and rolled out its own new index and ranking system. Although Yahoo had purchased Inktomi in December 2002, Yahoo opted to build its own web search engine. Yahoo still relied on Google for image...

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Microsoft introduces the Bing Network In 2016, Microsoft announced the launch of the Bing Network, marking the end of the Yahoo Bing Network. Bing Ads continued to serve ads on a sizable percentage of Yahoo’s search results. The Bing Network was the result of a renegotiated search deal between Microsoft...

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Google’s John Mueller: Try to avoid link building In 2015, Google’s John Mueller was asked on a Google+ hangout “is link building in any way good?” Mueller’s initial response: “in general, I’d try to avoid that.” As with any Mueller answer, there was a bit more nuance to...

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