SEO is one of the most popular and effective ways to get visitors online. With that being said, Google constantly changes its ranking algorithm which impacts the entire SEO industry. In 2018 as well, there were quite a few changes which were made by Google to its ranking algorithm.
We will today track some of these changes and what these mean for the normal website owner.
- Mandatory SSL encryption for ranking
It was filed earlier that websites having an SSL encrypted domain gets preference while ranking. However, an update announced by Google in February stated clearly that from July 2018, the websites will be downright punished if they do not have an SSL encrypted domain. This made it almost compulsory for all the website owners to get an SSL encryption for their domain.
While this move was long coming and was anticipated by most of the SEO agencies and business but the idea that the websites not having SSL connection will be downright punished was surprising for some. Any SEO agency worth its salt would have told you in advance that this was coming.
- Slow websites get punished
Right at the start of the year 2018, Google confirmed that Maccabees update was indeed launched. This update particularly targeted websites which had an extensive Meta description. However, the announcement which came along with this update was more important than the update itself. Google announced that from coming July, the websites which are slower will head to a lower position in the search results.
This clearly articulated the fact that if the websites are slower, they will be downright punished. The only unfortunate thing about this announcement was that Google gave Webmasters more than enough time in order to modify their websites to avoid this fate.
- “People Also Search For” Box
“People Also Search For” box is similar to Google search suggestions which appear at the bottom of each and every search result page. However, this box only appears when you head back to Google search engine after clicking on a page. The reason why it impacts normal Webmasters is that it expands each and every search result and thereby decreasing the CTR for the naturally ranking websites. That is why; it is one of the major changes in the SEO industry which happened in 2018.
- Google Crawl Limits
When you’re running an SEO campaign, you might require indexing quite a few URLs. Whether these are your backlinks or the new pages which you have created on your website, it is entirely up to you. However, in the year 2018 Google introduced crawl limits.
Nowadays, you can only use the Fetch as Google option for up to 10 URLs per day. While this might be more than enough for most of the smaller websites, but not for the bigger websites. That is why; it significantly reduces the number of URLs which you can get indexed. This also effectively kills the use of this method for indexing your backlinks. The number of backlinks in any SEO campaign is much higher than just 10. Thus, it limits the use of this tool to actually index the pages of your website rather than the backlinks.
- Mobile-First Indexing
By the end of March 2018, Google made it pretty clear that the indexing henceforth will happen on a mobile 1st basis. This means that Google will take into account the Mobile compatibility of your websites as well as the mobile loading speed of your website before ranking your websites.
This wasn’t much of an issue for websites which were already responsive. However, many websites which were static in nature and not mobile responsive were ranked lower until they made their websites responsive. Thus, it led to temporary loss of traffic for the Webmasters which were relying on SEO in order to bring in customers. With the advent of advanced mobile pages, however, now most of the websites are not only responsive but also blazing fast. Thus, the impact due to this move was temporary rather than permanent.
- Feature Rich Snippets
Google search results snippets at the position 0 have been around for quite some period of time. In almost all of the search results snippets, only one site was featured. However, in 2018, Google made changes to the snippets. Now, more than one site can also be integrated into this box. There are quite a few search result examples where websites have been integrated into this feature Rich snippet.
For most of the SEO marketers, this means that there is a greater chance to appear in these snippets. Now that, more than one site can appear in the snippets, the probability of creating a page which can feature in this section is higher than ever. In essence, this might be a positive change for some but it also decreases the CTR for the search results which are ranking below the snippet.
- Relevancy Update
The relevancy update was launched by Google in March of this year. This clearly articulated the fact that Google ranked the content lower which it deemed to be inferior to the competitors. Irrespective of the authority of the website, such content was ranked much lower. This clearly indicated that if the content is not superior enough, it will rank lower irrespective of the authority of the website.
The flipside to this, however, is that most of the websites were able to recover after the improved content quality. This might have more to do with user experience as compared to brand or domain authority. Nevertheless, this will keep the SEO industry on their toes as they will have to update the content on their websites consistently in order to make it better than their competitors. In essence, however, it will consistently improve the search engine experience of the users who are searching various queries on Google. Thus, for the Webmasters, it is a good move to keep on improving their content.
- “Mentioned on Wikipedia” Carousel
“Mentioned on Wikipedia” Carousel was integrated into the search results of Google in April of this year. This was included especially for the brand based search results or the index search results. This makes it more important than ever for the Webmasters to get featured on Wikipedia.
Since the scope of this change was limited only to a small portion of the search results, the update is much more intricate as compared to others. Nevertheless, it impacts the SEO industry as there will be an additional Carousel above the search results. This will, in turn, affect the CTR for the naturally ranking websites for at least those search results on which the carousel appears.
So, if you are a Webmaster who actively relies on SEO in order to drive traffic to your website, these are some of the most prominent changes which were made by Google in 2018. You have to ensure that you are optimizing your website accordingly in order to gain consistent traffic through the search results. While a number of changes which Google is making to the search results are higher than ever but at the same point in time, the number of people using Google as a search engine is increasing as well. Thus, the incentive to optimize your website better is always there.
