How To Keep Track Of Google Algorithms?

Search engine optimization is an indispensable part of maintaining a sound online presence. In fact, if you don't optimize your website for search engine, it would just be lost somewhere in the vast expanse of the World Wide Web. In order to ensure your audiences see your website and visit it, it is important to optimize it for the popular search engines so that they rank well in their search results.

And talking about search engines, Google is the unchallenged king! In spite of the presence of other search engines like Bing, MSN, Ask etc., Google has maintained an unquestionable majority in the search engine market and has become a synonym for online search. People don't search for information online... They Google it!

No wonder then that one of the primary objectives of all online businesses is to take their websites to the top slots of Google search results. And with the whole world vying for the same, the competition is escalated to a very high scale. This is why search engine optimization becomes a highly challenging task.

Google Algorithms
One prime reason behind the complexity of search engine optimization for Google is the number of changing factors that it takes into account while ranking websites (which they don't disclose fully.)

Google authorities have spelt out that there are roughly about 300-400 changes that are made to the ranking algorithm every year. The main objective of regularly updating the algorithms is to get better of SEO spammers and thwarting their efforts to use malicious ways to top Google results.

This just goes on to reinstate that there in no 'one' fool-proof strategy to rank well on Google. Rather, you need to focus on the prime principles of providing good content and linking to relevant and quality websites and most importantly stay updated on all the Google Algorithm updates and filter out the important changes that may affect the ranking of your website.

Major Google Algorithm Updates in 2009

Here is a list of the major changes that were introduced in the Google ranking system in 2009.

Canonical Link Element
The canonical link element rel=”canonical” is added to a page within the header of pages that have the same content but different URLs. It informs the search engine about which one is the most important page out of all the identical ones. The canonical link element highly reduces the problem of duplicate content and flows the ranking from internal and potentially external links back to a single page.

Search Refinements & Snippets
Google started displaying Related Searches at the bottom of the search results page. Related search are a combination of the suggested search options you get to see as you type your query in the Google search box. And since these suggestions influence users to a great extent, you can seek to drive in more traffic to your website by optimizing it for these keywords.

The Rich Snippets options allow website owners to provide small snippets of information about the contents of the web pages that will be displayed along with the links in the search results. This allows users to know what the page is about and whether they need to browse the same.

Show Options
The Show Options appears on the top of the search results page where you can click on the 'plus' sign to get various options to refine the results. It makes it easier for people to locate content like videos, forums, reviews, latest news and so on.

NoFollow Treatment
Google introduced a ‘nofollow’ attribute for the A HREF HTML command for coding hyperlinks. Nofollow attribute is also used extensively in social networks and in forums to prevent any SEO value comment spammers get from posting useless content.

The search engine optimization is a crucial process. In addition to following the basic principles, it is important to monitor your website ranking diligently and keep track of all the updates and changes done by Google!

Maneet Puri is the managing director of LeXolution IT Services, an professional web development company based in India that specializes in delivering world class web services to its clients. He has over 10 years of experience in providing website design services to his clients and has successfully completed several international projects.