Changes in SEO in the last 5 years
                     Changes in 
SEO in the 
01
last 5 years
Wi t n e s s  t h e  c h a n g e s  i n  t h e  S E O  w o r l d  t h a t  h a v e  
re v o l u t i o n i s e d  t h e  w a y  c o n t e n t  i s  w r i t t e n  t o d a y.
Changes are the only  constant !  The wor ld  
o f  SEO has witnessed signifi cant changes in 
these fi ve years which have changed the Introducti 02
way how a digital  market ing company works 
today. Some of the not iceable changes 
witnessed each year are mentioned below. on
Major changes in 2016
2016 – The watchdog of content
In 2016 again, the updates and changes in SEO were made 
to develop ways of local SEO and solve the issues of 
keyword stuffing. The significant changes in this year were : 03
• January- Google Panda part of the algorithm
• March- content, rank brain, and links are the top three 
ranking factor
• April- Page speed doesn’t impact SEO  
• September- Possum update launches and Penguin 4.0 
operates in real time
• December- Google reviews spam pages with vulgar 
language 
Major changes in 2017
Birth of Fred in 2017
In 2017 Google brought significant updates in the SEO 
world by introducing a new algorithm directed towards 
quality content. 04
• January 10 Google started rolling penalty for spammy 
pages
• March 8 Fred update changes how algorithm work
• June 20  Google job officially launched
• November 30 snippet length increased and meta 
description limit upto 300 character
• August 15 Maccabees update with MozCast as a rank 
tracking tool.
Major changes in 2018
Users Were the King in 2018
The year 2018 saw changes in SEO directed towards 
making content mobile friendly and the number of SERPs 
increased due to video. 05
• March 8 Brackets core update 
• March 26 mobile first index rolls out to impact the 
overall index
• May 13 snippet length dropped to 130-150 characters
• June 14 Video carousal 
• August 1 medic core update which affected the health 
industry
Major changes in 2019
2019- BERT greets SEO world
There were updates based on MozCast and indexing around it, 
which was reflected in the health-related business pages.
06
• March 12 new update as MozCast reaches 101.2◦F
• April 5 de-indexing bug which dropped pages without 
proper URL
• July 12 Maverick update 
• October 22 BERT update  for natural interpretation of 
languages
Major changes in 2020
Slow Yet Quality Updates in 2020
This year the updates were slow as the pandemic situation created 
situation of unrest. Some of the changes in SEO seen were-
07
• January 13- major core update with Mozcast showing a high flux 
and 99◦F temperature.
• January 22 – Google declared that for organic results, URLs 
wouldn’t be appearing in featured snippets
• March 11- COV-19 update which was unconfirmed. WHO’s 
warning of the pandemic situation was a turning factor.
• August 10 Google glitch as SEO, reported significant changes 
which changed after some time. Google claimed a bug in its 
indexing.
08
These are the changes SEO world witnessed in last 5 years. 
Keeping a track of them will help you develop quality content. We 
at Das Writing Services follow these guidelines and off er you top-
notch content writing services. Contact Us Now...
Contact Us
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