The secrets of Google's algorithm: the ultimate guide

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. With so much traffic, getting a good position on the Google SERP means a considerable increase in the number of visitors and therefore potential leads.

Discover all the secrets behind Google's algorithm: from how it works to penalties.

Discover the secrets of Google's algorithm

A SERP is a results page generated by a search engine following a user's search. In other words, as an Internet user, you probably spend a lot of your time on the SERPs!

  • Positions in a SERP
  • The SERP’s content depends on many criteria

All websites worldwide are crawled by the Googlebot, in charge of analyzing them in order to establish a relevant ranking in the search results.

  • What is Googlebot?
  • How does Googlebot work, and what is it looking for?
  • How to analyze Googlebot's visits on a website?
  • The robots.txt
  • How to optimize a website to please Googlebot?

Panda is the name of a Google algorithm update designed to reduce the prevalence of low-quality and/or duplicate content to offer users only relevant and unique content.

  • How does the Google Panda algorithm work?
  • What websites and content does Panda target?
  • How to get out of a Panda penalty?
  • How to know if a website is sanctioned by Panda?

Since its first release in April 2012, Google Penguin has changed the SEO landscape. It has considerably changed netlinking methods which are important for organic ranking.

  • What is Google Penguin?
  • How does the Google Penguin penalty work?
  • How to avoid a penalty?
  • How to get out of a Google Penguin penalty?

"Hummingbird" is the name of a new process that Google has been using in its algorithms since September 2013.

  • What is Google Hummingbird?
  • How does Hummingbird work?
  • What can be the impact on a website’s organic ranking?
  • How to meet Hummingbird's expectations?

At first, Google ranked pages according to the strength of their links, the interpretation of these links, things that were a bit complicated, but that remained "understandable" by humans like us. :)

  • (Quick) history of patents filed by Google
  • Focus on RankBrain ?
  • Focus on Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
  • 3 tips to optimize your CTR
  • Focus on usage metrics

The objective of this update, which is the biggest ever made by Google over the last 5 years, is to better understand the natural language of Internet users.

  • Google Bert: understanding internet user searches better than ever
  • Bert, the name’s origin
  • Bert, Google’s ‘translator’
  • What concrete changes for users?
  • Examples of changes made by Bert

In this article we will analyze the keys to understand the Google Mobile First Index (MFI) and its importance for websites.

  • What is the Mobile First Index?
  • Why did Google set up the Mobile First Index?
  • When was it set up?
  • What is the desktop’s place compared to the mobile?
  • How are positions affected?
  • How do you know if a website is managed by the Mobile First Index?
  • How should I adapt the content with this new index?

Concentrating more than 90% of the queries typed by Internet users, Google dominates the search engine market every year. Several search engines are really interesting alternatives that have a lot to offer, not only in terms of privacy, but also in terms of functionality.

  • Why find an alternative to Google?
  • General search engines
  • Specialized search engines

There is nothing worse for an SEO or an advertiser than to realize that his site has received a manual penalty. Just writing it down gives us the chills!

  • What is a manual penalty, and how does it differ from an algorithmic penalty?
  • How to know the impact of a manual penalty on a website?
  • How to avoid a manual penalty on a website?

Further reading

The complete guide to Internal Meshing

The step-by-step method to build your semantic cocoons, your mesh and the optimal tree structure of your website.

The new way to perform in SEO

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