Look At The History of Google Updates

There are a lot of Google updates every year. There are between 30 and 60 every year, and those are just the ones that Google publishes in their little timelines. There are probably a lot more that go on where it is not in Google’s interest to tell us about them. Here is a little bit of a history lesson when it comes to Google updating their search engine.

There is little history of structure changing

That has been little done over the last few years to change the actual structure of their search engine. One big one was in the year 2010 when they introduced the caffeine index. This is a change that helped to speed up how the index was crawled. It was a needed change as Google keeps growing the amount of websites it has on its index.


The most recent structure update was the Hummingbird update, and this was a change at a fundamental level according to the press conference that Google held. It had no immediate affect beyond a few websites falling from the search engine results pages (SERP) and Google moving and changing a few things. As many understand the update, it is going to allow the search engine to evolve in accordance with what people are searching for and how the web masters are answering the queries of users. It is no longer a simple matter of this keyword shows this, and this keyword shows that.

They change to adapt to the users manipulating the system

A great many of their updates are done in order to stop people manipulating the search engine, and this also counts as making the search engine more user friendly. People manipulate the system so that they rise up to the top of the search engine results pages. With this power there are often people that insert spam sites.

When Google updates it gets rid of these sites from the search engine results. This is how it helps usability, but also makes it a lot harder for people to manipulate the search engine. They then have to go out and find a new way to manipulate the system.

Many of their updates are security updates

This is what a lot of programs have to do these days. Is ii possible to get to the Google data centers via the website? It probably is and there are probably lots of people out there right now trying to hack it. That is why Google keeps on updating its security so frequently.

Most updates are there to improve the user experience

The updates will often remove websites that are spammy (as mentioned above), but the updates often aim to get rid of irrelevant websites. They work to get rid of the websites that do not apply to the search the user is doing. They want people to find the best possible answer as quickly as possible. If people have to search and get to page ten when they want an answer, then they will simply start moving to other search engines to get their answers.

Google tries to make it so that the websites at the top of the result are the absolute best possible results for that user. The sad part is that language is so changeable and so complex that Google cannot possibly know what a person wants through a simple string of words.

What’s more difficult is the fact that as people use Google more they start changing the way they search. They may start by writing in sentences, then after a few months start typing in strings of keywords. Then, after a few more months the user may switch again and start using the Google operators such as quotes or the minus sign. Then, after a few months the user may just type in a keyword or two and wait for the suggestions tool to do the work. There are all these variables and yet Google has to try and keep the results relevant.

Historically, after each big update their profits skyrocket

Google deny this almost every time it happens, and then they release their profits at their year and it turns out that their profits have hit a new high. There is an opinion that Google updates their search engine so often because it forces people to start using Google AdWords and it makes them a lot of money.

There is also a theory that they update their search engine and favor websites with their affiliate advertising (Google Adsense) on so that they make more money. Whether this is true or not is unclear.