The Evolution of Google and How It Affects Your SEO

For some businesses, their entire revenue model relies on Google. If there's a change that impacts search results, revenue could drop in a major way.

There are smaller updates that you don't know about, as Google has been known to make tweaks on a daily basis.

The thing to remember about Google is that it's a business. Its main source of revenue is advertising, which is shown primarily on search results.

If people aren't using search, advertisers spend their marketing dollars elsewhere, and Google doesn't have much of a business.

It was way back in 2001 when Google was used as a verb on television - in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Buffy asked if someone Googled information.

In just a few short years, Google went from new kid on the block to a verb on one of the top TV shows.

How did they manage to do that? With a superior product. At the time, the main players of the internet were AltaVista, AskJeeves, Yahoo!, and Excite.

Google had patented a key component of its algorithm in 1998, called PageRank. PageRank was revolutionary in that it was a way to separate high-quality from low-quality pages.

Now that you know how Google was able to get such a huge part of the search market, let's look at how the company was able to maintain it.

The company rolled out updates and improvements to the algorithm over the years. Google is famously secretive of its algorithm since that's the core of its business.

One of the first confirmed algorithm changes happened with the Boston update in 2003. This update introduced some algorithm changes and index changes.

The Penguin update took the Panda update a few steps further. Unnatural keywords like 'plumber Mississauga' would raise red flags if they appeared often on websites.

RankBrain is probably the least discussed but most interesting Google update. This is where Google's algorithm included machine learning.

This meant that user intent started to take shape in the search results. Let's say you wanted to find "Italian restaurants." Did you mean to search for Italian restaurants in Mississauga or an Italian restaurant near you that delivered?

With all of these changes, what does the future of SEO hold? We've seen Google evolve to penalize keyword stuffing and gaming the system.

The algorithm has shifted to emphasize mobile search. Next up will be voice search. More people are using home assistants to find information and create a smarter home.

Since Google's algorithm changes every day, how can you stay on top of trends?

There are a few ways to stay ahead of the curve. You can read publications like Search Engine Journal and Social Media Today.

If you don't have the time to keep up, you can hire a team of experts to mange the SEO for you and let them do the research.

You can be like Google and put the user first. The more you provide valuable content for your readers, the more likely they are to share it and link to it. That will improve your search results.

Google started as a way to index all of the information on the internet and make it easier to find information. The company has come a long way from a doctoral project at Stanford to become one of the world's largest companies.

The evolution of Google really began when the company's leaders realized that the search engine had to continuously provide relevant results.

Those changes have huge impacts on websites, businesses, and users. That's why it helps to have a team of experts who can help you navigate the frequently changing SEO landscape.