Google’s Everchanging Search Algorithms
Google’s complex algorithms are what make web searches beneficial to so many people in today’s world, and many users know that. However, one thing that I did not realize is that these algorithms can change on a daily basis, and even multiple times a day. The changes that occur daily are not typically ones that significantly impact web rankings, but changes are still relevant otherwise Google would not make them. According to Neil Patel’s blog post, there are ways for people to slightly cheat the ever-changing algorithms to help push their website to the top of the search results. In his blog post titled “How to Hack Google: The Ultimate Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet,” he lists the following seven hacks as the best ways to cheat the algorithm: 1. Increase page speed, 2. Content relevance, 3. Site design, 4. Link quality, 5. Mobile friendliness, 6. HTTPS status, and 7. User engagement. People want to cheat the Google algorithms so that their page appears higher on prompted search results. If their page appears higher, there is a better chance that a user will see their website and if they see the website there is a higher chance that the user will click on and visit their site. While all of these hacks will likely help push a webpage up on the resulting web search list, hack number seven stood out to me the most.
Neil Patel describes hack number 7 by stating “Google might affect websites with high bounce rates and few return visitors because the pages may be low quality.” This reminded me of the topic on hubs and authorities discussed in this course. Neil Patel does not seem to be explicitly referring to the idea of hubs and authorities, but the way he categorized this as a “user engagement” hack reminded me of the topic. If Neil Patel is not referring to the idea of hubs and authorities here in hack number 7, I would argue that an 8th hack could created. This 8th hack could be for people to increase their hubs/authorities score. I would argue this because having more hubs pointing to your site increases your chances of rising on the web search results page. This may not be as simple as Neil’s other proposals, however it would have an impact on users web search ranking, and would be worth bringing up to readers.
https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-ultimate-google-algorithm-cheat-sheet/