GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE

Google is the world's most popular web search engine, handling over 3 billion searches a day, amounting to more than 100 billion searches each month (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ technology-23866614). Originally developed in 1997, Google has come a long way from being a tool to search for words in a document to actually understanding what the users want and giving them what they need. This powerful search engine has added value to the web, making it possible to find the information you need within seconds.

With Google being the most popular search engine, search engine optimization has gone on to become synonymous with Google optimization, as webmasters work toward influencing their website rankings on Google. This is done through a complex process which patterns in Google's listings are discerned to determine on-page as well as off-page factors to improve rankings.

Google offers a variety of services to its members. Some directly relate to search engines, and others do not. The specialized searches allow you to find images, maps, news articles, products or services, blog entries, videos, scholarly papers, and much more. Non-search-related services offered by Google include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Translate, Google Plus, and YouTube.

• Gmail is Google's web-based e-mail program that anyone can sign up for, and it's free.

• Google Docs is a popular storage database that provides free storage space of up to fifteen gigabytes, with another one hundred gigabytes available for a cost of up to $4.99 per month. You can store documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more with a Google Docs account.

• Google Maps allows users to view an address location or get driving directions.

• Google Earth uses Google Maps to create an interactive digital globe.

• Google Translate is a multilingual translation service that allows users to translate written text from one language to another.

• Google+ is a social networking service by Google, with 540 million monthly active users; it is the second-largest social networking site in the world, trailing only Facebook (http://marketingland.com/google-hits-300-million-active-monthly-in-stream-users-540-million-across-google-63354).

• Google owns the popular video-sharing website YouTube, which is used to upload, view, and share videos.

Google also offers various additional services, including Google Checkout, Google AdWords, and Google AdSense. Google Checkout is designed to partner with merchants to make online purchases easier for customers. To create an account, users need to provide a credit or debit card number, which is stored in a secure database. This enables users to make future purchases without having to enter a card number each time.

AdWords allows companies to submit advertisements to Google that contain certain keywords related to their business. These tools serve as a way for Google to provide targeted advertising to users.

RECENT GOOGLE UPDATES

Google Penguin Update

The Google Penguin update, launched in April 2012, aims to flag websites that violate the Webmaster's Guidelines outlined by Google. This update was introduced by Google in an attempt to discourage black-hat SEO techniques, such as link schemes, which are used to manipulate inbound or outbound links to a website.

By making this update, Google has been able to identify thousands of websites that were spamming its search results. This was seen by many as a death knell for SEO and has forced webmasters to look for new, more authentic ways to improve their website rankings on Google. The message from Google was, as usual, to focus on creating high-quality content and employ white-hat SEO methods. Websites that are engaged in black-hat SEO techniques, such as buying links or getting them on link farms in order to achieve high ranks on Google, have been penalized by Penguin update.

How It Works

Google's Penguin update relies on human quality raters to determine the quality of a website. With hundreds of workers dedicated to ranking websites based on a set of predetermined factors, Google is given insight into possible changes.

However, this is just a part of the engineering testing process. Once a proposed change makes it through the initial test phases, it is subjected to a side-by-side test, which is a kind of blind taste test where, for a particular query, two sets of search results are assigned to human raters who give a comparative analysis.

Google Penguin primarily targets websites engaged in deliberate manipulation of search engine results using methods such as cloaking, creating mirror websites, generating fake links using software, etc. The feedback form, prepared by Google two days after this update was launched, involved users in the process by allowing them to report web spam that was still undetected and ask for a reconsideration if they felt their site was unfairly hit.

Effect on Search Listings

When the Penguin update was first launched in 2012, it impacted 3.1 percent of the total search queries on Google. The subsequent data refreshes impacted 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent of the total queries, respectively. This was followed by Penguin 2.0, which, with an impact of 2.3 percent, was the biggest tweak to the Penguin updates since the original update.

Sites that have been impacted by the Penguin updates can work toward getting the penalty lifted by cleaning up their back-link profile. However, merely focusing on the quality of links for your website is not enough, as it is equally important to work toward creating a positive user experience. The idea is to create and promote high-quality content, which provides value to its readers. The creation of natural back links to your website should come as a by-product of your efforts.

Google Panda Update

Introduced in February 2011, Google's Panda update aimed to curb sites with poor quality content and give way to...