Google is easily the most popular and widely used search engine in the world. In fact, more than 99,000 searches take place every second, which is why Google spends a considerable amount of time and money making sure that site owners have the tools they need to improve their search rankings.

In 2003, Google created a complex system known as the Google search algorithm. This system provides Google with the means of identifying, ranking, and eventually returning relevant pages for specific search queries. The system considers numerous factors when ranking a page, which include everything from usability to quality and relevance.

Google is constantly updating its search algorithm to make sure that online businesses and websites are able to more effectively gain visibility and improve authority. Over the years, Google has made many notable algorithm updates, refreshes, and search index changes.

While not every change that’s made to the Google algorithm is substantial, being aware of the larger changes and updates is highly recommended if you want to keep your website as up-to-date and optimized as possible. The following details some of the many updates that have been made to the Google algorithm in 2022.

What is a Google Algorithm Update?

Google makes numerous updates to its algorithm system every year. These changes are designed to improve Google’s overall ranking processes. While some of the updates that Google makes are core updates that are meant to improve the relevancy of search results and make these results more helpful, there are also hundreds of smaller updates during the year that can help improve a company’s online business ranking, content value, and overall success.

By remaining aware of the most pertinent updates that are made to the Google algorithm, you should be ready to alter your approach to optimization to ensure that your website is ranked towards the top of relevant search results.

Why Update the Google Algorithm?

The algorithms that Google use are combined in a complex and difficult-to-understand system that retrieves data directly from its search engine to provide users with the most relevant search results after a query is made. The Google search engine users numerous ranking factors and algorithms to provide pages that are ranked by relevance via SERPs.

Several times every year, Google focuses on making core updates to their search algorithm, which is meant to make sure that search results are more relevant while also providing businesses with a better opportunity to have their websites ranked. The goal is to make sure that the system is fair for everyone involved.

Because of how complex this system is, not making regular updates could cause search results to worsen in accuracy. When Google’s algorithm was first introduced to the internet in 2003, only a few updates were made each year. Today, thousands of separate updates can be made every year. While the majority of these updates are tiny, they can still lead to significant changes to how the algorithm works.

How Many Times Does Google Update its Search Algorithms?

Even though Google only advertises a dozen or so updates ever year, they actually update their search algorithms thousands of times each year. During 2020, Google ended up making around 4,500 changes and updates to its search algorithms, which means that Google updated these algorithms around 12 times every day. Alongside these updates, Google ran over 600,000 different experiments in 2020.

2022 Google Algorithm Updates

While every update to Google’s algorithm system is important, the most recent updates in September 2022 are likely the most critical changes that Google has made to its algorithm this year. Because of these changes, 2022 is going to be a big year for valuable content that’s more appealing to readers as opposed to crawlers.

The goal of the latest “helpful content” update is to make sure that websites start writing content that’s geared towards readers instead of search engines. Before this update, many site owners would attempt to rank higher by implementing keyword stuffing in their content without even thinking about readability.

January 2022 – Google Algo Updates

The main update that occurred in January 2022 involves the signals from a mobile version of a page being updated without needing the page to be mobile-friendly. This update took around nine days to be fully rolled out.

March 2022 – Google Algo Updates

In March, Google made a third release of a previous “product reviews” update, which took several weeks to roll out. This update built on the features that were implemented with the initial two product reviews updates. The purpose was to make it easier for Google to identify well-written product reviews so that these reviews can be given better rankings. Google also provided a few pieces of advice around recommendations for “best” products, creating reviews for products, and ranked lists.

April 2022 – Google Algo Updates

All of the updates that were made to the Google algorithms in April 2022 were smaller in nature, which means that they weren’t officially confirmed by Google.

May 2022 – Google Algo Updates

In May, the first core algorithm update of 2022 took place. This update took around two weeks to roll out. Like other core updates, the purpose of this one was to improve how the ranking system that Google maintains measures content and assigns relevancy.

June 2022 – Google Algo Updates

June was another relatively slow month without major updates. However, website owners noticed that there were a large number of small updates that were pushed out in late June. Since Google didn’t provide details, the reason for these updates isn’t clear.

July 2022 – Google Algo Updates

The fourth version of the aforementioned product reviews update was released in July and took only six days to be rolled out. Unlike the previous versions of the product reviews update, Google didn’t change much with this update. It was designed as a refresh of the previous updates as opposed to a wholesale upgrade, which means that it didn’t produce much ranking volatility.

August 2022 – Google Algo Updates

In August, Google many several notable changes to its algorithm. On August 18, Google officially revealed the first details of its helpful content update. While this update began to roll out in late August, it wasn’t completed until September 9. Since the helpful content update is the most important update that Google’s set to make throughout the remainder of the year, most of the changes that Google made to its algorithm centered around this update.

Google also provided site owners with a series of 15 questions that they could ask when reviewing their content to determine if the content is built for humans first. It’s believed that the pieces of content that will be most impacted by these changes include shopping content, online education materials, and entertainment-related content.

September 2022 – Google Algo Updates

September saw the second official core update for the year, which launched a few days after the helpful content update was fully rolled out. The rollout of this update was completed on September 26. The core update was another product reviews update that was centered around rewarding English-language reviews that are useful and helpful to searchers.

Looking Forward

Google is always updating their algorithm and wants to make further improvements in the months and years to come. Google is always striving to improve their search algorithm and make the search experience more effective for users and site owners alike.

Google’s helpful content update is particularly important for the search experience since it targets content that has mainly been created to obtain high rankings in search engines instead of informing or helping people. Google wants searchers to be able to discover high-quality content with ease. If you want to increase the likelihood that your site pages and content will rank well on search engines, it’s highly recommended that you write engaging content that site visitors will find useful.

In recent years, searchers have become increasingly frustrated by the rate at which they land on completely unhelpful pages that are somehow ranking well in search results. The newest algorithm update is designed to lower the ranking of unhelpful websites while improving rankings for websites that are helpful and designed specifically for humans.

Even though substantial changes have been made to the search algorithm with this update, the impact is expected to be relatively low. As long as you strive to create relevant and interest content that doesn’t appear as though it’s written for search engines, there’s a good chance your rankings won’t drop.

Optimizing your website and content for search engines is always going to be somewhat challenging. While placing the right keywords in your content is essential if you want your site pages to rank well, focusing too much on keywords could lead to poor search engine rankings. By paying attention to the latest Google algorithm updates, you should be able to adapt to these changes with relative ease.