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Two and half decades have passed, and today’s Google looks very different from the Google of 1998.

We’ve seen countless Google updates over the years. From the knowledge graph, to featured snippets, to pandas, penguins, and hummingbirds—oh my! With so many Google algorithm updates and SERP changes, we’re reviewing a complete Google history to get you up to speed.

Take a scroll down memory lane and learn about some of the biggest Google algorithm updates and notable SERP changes by Google over the years. It all kicks off in the 90s.

1998: Google Is Born

Google’s inception actually dates back to 1995 at Stanford University. Two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed a dorm room search engine project that eventually sparked the interest of Silicon Valley investors. In August 1998, Google Inc. was born.

1998 Google was Google in beta, so it was still well on its way to becoming the best search engine. Think minimalist chic Google. Google ads and local listings weren’t a thing yet, so Google’s SERP featured a lot of white space. But that all started to change after the turn of the century.

Google’s Terrible Twos & Toddler Years (1999-2004)

Google started to change between 2003 and 2004. The introduction of online local listings, All Results, and Google Ads were the biggest Google algorithm updates in the company’s early years.

Google introduced online local listings to help users find results tied to their specific area. The All Results tab allowed users to search a variety of search options, and Google Ads… well, they continue to frustrate the masses.

Google Ads served as a reminder that Google is a business at the end of the day. A business that made $162.45 billion from search ads in 2022, making search ads the company’s top revenue source to date.

Google also started cracking down on spammy search results before other search engines. The company worked hard to ensure their results were the most accurate and less likely to cause users headaches and frustration.

Google Algorithm Updates from 2005-2010

“Minimalist chic” Google disappeared after the advent of Google Ads, and Google’s SERP now began to feel a bit more cluttered.

On the bright side, Google Suggest arrived in 2007 allowing users to shave seconds off of their search time, and giving us all hilarious insight into the searches of our peers.

Google got rid of their Feeling Lucky button that let users bypass those exhausting ads and go straight to the website of the first search result.

The button still exists today, but around the 2009-2010 mark, with the combination of Google Instant (also gone) and Google Suggest, the button was basically defunct.

Advanced Search was still part of the regular search function in 2010 and other search tools appeared on the left-hand side of the SERP, allowing users to tap into a more specific search query.

Unlike today’s results, the SERP design was much more vertical; notice how the sitelinks under the primary domain are vertically aligned rather than today’s horizontally aligned sitelinks.

While this change may seem self-explanatory, a more horizontal approach means a) more search results per page and b) more detailed search results. These purely user-driven decisions were what led to major Google search updates. Next up: Google’s animal era.

Pandas, Penguins, & Hummingbirds–Oh My! (2011-2014)

Pandas, penguins, and hummingbirds ruled this epoch of Google history. Let’s break down these updates in more detail.

Google’s Panda Update (2011)

This update sought to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”

The update, named after Navneet Panda (an inventor on the accompanying patent for the update, not a panda bear), launched in February 2011 and noticeably impacted rankings on 11.8% of queries.

Google’s Penguin Update (2012)

Google’s Penguin update was a landmark update and one of the most notable SERP changes by Google. It cracked down on sites engaging in webspam tactics like keyword stuffing (unnaturally forcing keywords into content) and link spam (link inclusion purely to boost SEO).

Effectively, any site attempting to manipulate search rankings by abusing SEO tactics was punished by Google’s Penguin update. Google announced the update in 2012 and made it part of its core algorithm in 2016.

Google’s Hummingbird Update (2013)

Aptly named for being “quick and precise,” Google’s Hummingbird update was essentially a rewrite of Google’s core algorithm.

The update improved Google’s ability to handle natural conversation in search queries. Instead of matching all words in a query to the words on a web page, Google began intuitively ignoring certain words that weren’t super relevant to a searcher’s meaning.

The Knowledge Graph (2013)

Not an animal update, but still fun! Google launched the knowledge graph and corresponding Carousel in 2013 to create Universal Search. With this new feature, Google tossed all search results together instead of separating them out (video on top of an image on top of a domain).

Ads were limited to 3-4 above the fold with more at the bottom of the page. Local listings were a part of the natural landscape of the search results (although fewer were shown). All Results were placed at the top of the results pages, and then visuals busted onto the scene.

Humans are visual creatures. Seeing an image with text helps us make connections to what we are seeing and searching for. By creating a more visual experience, users had an easier time finding what they needed through Search.

Google Goes Mobile (2014)

By 2014, Google had successfully become our third, digital arm. We were using Google not only to search but to create ads, email, track our web analytics, and search for crawl errors.

Naturally, the SERPs were a reflection of each individual’s personal connection with the tech giant. Results were more personalized based on search history and the search tool became an extension of your results page.

But what was one of the most important transitions of 2014? Mobile.

Not only did Google start stressing the importance of a mobile-friendly site (followed by the highly anticipated Mobilegeddon in 2015), the aesthetic of their entire page changed between 2010 and 2014 to reflect a cleaner surface, fit for tinier screens.

And let’s not forget Voice Search. As a growing number of users adopted smartphones and began searching through mobile, the ability to quickly ask a question hands-free became more and more of a necessity. This was the dawn of the phrase “OK, Google.”

Google Algorithm Updates from 2015-2019

2015’s Mobilegeddon, or Mobile-Friendly Update, rewarded mobile-friendly websites with better SERP rankings. As we said, mobile became a massive game-changer for Google during this era.

The RankBrain update also arrived in 2015 and improved Google’s ability to understand new, complex queries. It was essentially Google’s first AI system and deep learning model, allowing Google to intuitively identify related words and concepts.

With new Answer Boxes to recent Tweets (now X’s?) and stories, there was often no reason to leave Google’s SERP page. Product Graphs also arrived at around this time, giving users a breakdown of a product before even visiting the site.

Images and videos appeared above the fold now. The “snack pack” version of local listings gave a user everything they needed to know about contacting a business before even clicking on its website link. And even with longer meta titles & descriptions, organic results got pushed further down the page.

In 2018, the Google Medic Update targeted medical sites that didn’t comply with Google’s E-A-T (now with an extra “E”) guidelines. Essentially, the update punished sites that were making unsubstantiated medical claims.

Google’s BERT Update in 2019 introduced a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm that helped Google understand the nuances of users’ search queries. BERT stood for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. What’s that exactly?

Basically, BERT assesses all words in a complex search query to give users the most relevant results to their query, rather than just searching for content based on individual words. With the BERT update, the 2010s chapter of Google closed with some impressive new features.
So what’s happening with Google’s latest updates?

Google Algorithm Updates from 2020-2023

Google algorithm updates in recent years have mostly revolved around spam and product review updates.

Google cracked down on spammy links in 2022 by making improvements to SpamBrain, Google’s AI spam-detection system. Any sites engaging in spammy practices or violating Google’s spam guidelines saw worse SERP rankings.

For product review updates, Google began rewarding sites with rich, in-depth reviews rather than thin, low-quality reviews that weren’t as helpful to readers.

These product review updates coincided with Google’s Helpful Content Update. Essentially, the updates ensured users saw more helpful, high-quality, and original content.

Closing Thoughts After a Scroll Down Memory Lane

Google is constantly changing, and it’s safe to say Google will keep growing and changing for years to come. With ever-evolving AI technology and tools like Bard, search will become even easier.

In February 2023, Google announced, “Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web.”

With that said, having to balance UX with revenue-driving tools can be difficult. And staying on top of the latest Google search results trends and major Google search updates can be equally challenging.

Have other questions about Google algorithm updates? Or need some more Google guidance? Reach out to our team for answers on all things Google!

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This blog was originally published on September 12, 2016. It was updated on September 1, 2023.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal roadmap to achieve a successful marketing campaign. And it can be frustrating to put the work in, and the budget, and ultimately not see the results you deserve.

We’ve seen this frustration happen time and time again. Which is why we’ve written this blog. We’ll outline the logistics behind Google Ads audiences, and our best practices when it comes to getting to know your audience better.

What is the Google Ads Platform?

We are going to be talking a lot about Google Ads Audiences, and to start the conversation, it’s important to have an understanding of the Google Ads Platform. Feel free to start exploring the platform and get some hands-on experience.

Within the Google Ads platform, you can obtain resources and valuable insights into the different aspects, including your google ads audiences of choice. There are a multitude of tools to help you find keywords, reach new and existing audiences, and test different strategies.

Breaking Down Google Ads Audience Segments

There are multiple types of audience segments you can create in Google Ads. But we’re going to focus on Google Ads’ in-market audiences, affinity segment targeting, and custom segments.

By utilizing these three types of audience segments, you can capture users who are highly invested in your company or product and users who are in the beginning stages of the buying journey.

Affinity Segments. If you’re creating a brand new audience or starting from scratch, affinity segment targeting is a great way to capture users in the beginning stages of the consumer journey.

This type of Google Ads audience emphasizes a user’s interests, rather than their recent spending habits. We recommend using affinity segment targeting to raise brand awareness and reach new users.
In-Market Segments. Going a bit deeper into the funnel, Google Ads’ in-market segments capture users based on recent purchases or ones with transactional intent. This is a great Google Ads audience to take advantage of when you have a clear understanding of your users and what they want from you.
Custom Segments. Google Ads’ custom intent audiences allow you to get very specific with your audience and target users based on keywords and URLs. This type of Google Ads audience comes with time and is especially useful once you have success with the platform.

So let’s say you’re a home improvement company but you want to focus a specific ad on kitchen repairs. You can include distinct keywords related to this topic. You can also include different URLS that are relevant and have information on kitchen repairs.

Building Your Google Ads Audience

As you begin building your Google Ads audience, you’ll first have to decide between “observation” and “targeting.”

In Google Ads, showing the two different options you can choose, targeting and observation.

Observation. Google will observe how certain criteria perform within your ads without limiting the reach of your ads. Essentially, it’s going to watch how the ad performs and better the audience/ad based on these observations.

We recommend using the observation feature for building newer audiences and any Search or Display campaigns.

Targeting. On the other hand, targeting is going to put you in control of who sees your ad and where it’s shown. Just like Google custom intent audiences, this is for specific audiences and specific content.

We’d recommend using targeting once you have a solidified understanding of who your audience is and are looking to capture users who are further into the consumer journey.

Once you’ve chosen observation or targeting, the next step to building your Google Ads audience is to include demographics. You can choose between a wide variety of segments, including age, location, and household income.

You may also decide to set up exclusions in your audience. Just like in social media advertising, exclusions are important to incorporate so your ads aren’t shown to people who are unlikely to interact with your product or service.

Pro Tip: We encourage you to connect your Google Ads and your Google Analytics 4 accounts so you can get a full picture of your customer’s journey. This connection allows you to better understand conversions and events happening from users interacting with your Google ads.

Who Are You Targeting?

Now that we’ve laid out how to logistically set up your audience, it’s time to outline how to decide who’s best to target and how you can access a more in-depth understanding of your audience.

The marketing funnel with the top starting at awareness and the last one being advocacy.

Look At the Stages in the User/Buyer Journey

There are five stages in the user/buyer journey, but we’re going to focus on the following three: awareness, consideration, and decision. If your marketing budget allows for it, you should be creating separate ads for users in each of these consumer stages.

Awareness Stage. When a user is in this stage, they’re browsing for general ideas, products, and services to help them solve a problem. They aren’t at the stage where they want to make any purchases. They’re simply gathering information.

Google search queries in this stage are going to be more general, like “best running sneakers” or “new garage door.”
Consideration Stage. Moving down the funnel a little, users in the consideration stage are going to start getting a bit more specific and finding a solution to their problem. In the awareness stage, they were looking for a change, but in the consideration stage, they’re looking for a solution.

Search queries could include “best shoe stores near me” or “should a professional install my new garage door.”
Decision Stage. The last stage of the user buying journey is where someone is going to be very intentional about their searches because they’re looking to make a purchase. They’ve done the research and know what product or service will solve their issue.

Google search queries are going to be specific like “HOKA shoes for running marathons” or “real-wood overhead garage doors.”

Your goal should be to capture users at every stage of the buying journey. Which means finding relevant and valuable keywords and language that matches each step of the process. Not sure how to find the right keywords for your ads? Don’t worry, we’ll get into that now.

Consider the Intent of Your Audience

Within each stage of the user/buyer journey, there are different intents for the consumer. You should recognize each intent so you can create a specific ad targeting their needs or wants.

a graphic that highlights the four different types of keyword intent.

There are four different types of intent keywords. They are information, navigational, commercial, and transactional. By getting a grasp of each of these, you can create different audiences for each consumer stage.

A general rule of thumb is as follows.

Information intent keywords are going to target users in the awareness stage.
Navigational and commercial intent keywords are geared toward users in the consideration stage.
Transactional intent keywords capture users in the decision stage.

Now, you can combine keyword groupings and reach multiple stages at once within your ad campaign. But, the language would have to be fairly general in order to attract all three stages.

This is why we recommend focusing on one stage per campaign with your keywords, language, and targeting so you can make each ad more personable for the user.

Tips to Knowing Your Audience Better

It’s easier said than done to know who your audience is and to craft ads that target specific segments. But we’ll outline some of our best tips so you can feel confident that you’re getting to know your audience and giving them information they engage with.

Do Your Research

First and foremost, do as much research with the tools you already have. Within your Google Analytics 4 account look at engagement metrics and see what users are doing on your site. If you have a page that’s getting a lot of traffic and conversions, you can continue this momentum by creating a supporting Google Ad.

You may be surprised to see how much insight you can also get by talking to your leadership, sales team, and marketing team.

Is the sales team noticing a product or service that’s selling really well?
What initiatives is your marketing team taking that you can support through Google ads?
Are there blogs already written on topics you can advertise?
Are there specific goals your leadership would like to see achieved this year?

By involving these departments in your marketing blueprint, you can ultimately create a comprehensive and well-rounded strategy.

Also, look at what your competitors are doing! They could spark ideas for advertising topics or landing pages. See what they’re doing and how you can put your unique value proposition into it to capture your audience’s attention.

Create a Target Persona

You benefit greatly from creating a target persona for every stage of the user funnel. What are the characteristics of someone in the awareness stage, or the consideration stage? How will the language of these ads differ from someone in the decision stage?

By having a clear outline of each stage and a target persona, you can truly start to craft specific language for each consumer stage. These personas also help you narrow down what your targeted users are searching for.

A lot of times businesses focus on their brand voice and tone when really they should be focusing on what customers are searching for on Google.

Do Some A/B Testing

By testing different Google detailed demographics, intent keywords, and audiences you can get a full picture of what people are responding to and what’s working well (or not working well) with your advertisements.

When you’re testing different characteristics, make sure you’re not changing everything at once. In fact, we recommend only changing one thing at a time so you have a concrete idea of whether the different feature benefited your ad or not.

Find the Right Keywords

We talk a lot about using intent keywords in your SEO and content marketing strategies, but you can also take full advantage of them within your Google ads. Especially when using Google’s custom intent audiences.

As we mentioned above, there are four different types of intent keywords. By utilizing and grouping these together, you can create audiences that attract a user from any stage of the consumer journey.

We recommend using the Keyword Magic Tool from SEMrush as a great start to finding relevant and valuable keywords for your campaigns!

Additional Tools

Here are a few additional resources our team uses to find the best insights for a great Google Ads audience.

Organic Insights in SEMrush. You can see keywords, landing pages, users, and conversion insights within this tool. See where your audience is going, what pages they are most interested in, and topics that are sparking their attention.

You can also see where your competitors are ranking well and what topics they are advertising. Ultimately, this is a great tool to connect your SEO and content strategies with your Google Ads campaigns.
Google Trends. This is a great starting point to find trending topics or see specific keywords and how they trend over time. Maybe you have a seasonality factor to strategize for and you notice there’s a trending topic in the spring that you should be targeting.
Microsoft Clarity. Our SEM team uses this tool to see where our audiences are going when they land on the site and what pages are gaining the most traffic. It can also help you see what CTAs and buttons are working really well on your page which can then be mirrored in your Google Ads.

Get in front of the right people and reach new users by utilizing Google Ads audiences. Have questions about how to get started? Our PPC specialists are here to help!

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This blog was originally published on June 16, 2021, and was updated on August 1, 2023.

Whether you’re looking for the best search engine for research or simply checking the weather forecast in your area, it’s a widely held belief that there are few (if any) search engines better than Google.

From the first time it appeared to the public, Google has had its grip on internet users worldwide. After reading this blog, you’ll understand why Google is the best search engine as well as how your business can leverage its many benefits.

When Did Google Come Out?

In 1996, two graduate students attending Stanford University wondered if there was a new (and better) way to search the World Wide Web. Together, they decided the answer was yes.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page would go on to invent one of the most popular search engines in the world. Working out of their dorm room, they created “Backrub”, a project that used backlinks to determine the importance of individual pages on the internet.

By the time 1998 came around, Brin and Page founded Google. The name change was meant to play off the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. They believed this name reflected their mission of organizing the world’s information in a way that was accessible and useful to everyone, everywhere.

What began as a small online search firm would turn into a search engine with more than 50 internet services and products that can be used by businesses, developers, and anyone else looking for information.

Why is Google so Popular?

“Google it”.

It’s a familiar phrase to hear someone say or even think to yourself. For years, Google has been the go-to search engine for internet users across the globe.

In 2022, studies showed that Google was visited 89.3 billion times a month, making it the most visited website by a landslide. To this day, Google has a market share of over 93%, which causes people to wonder – why is Google the best search engine?

While other search engines have continued to grow and become more efficient in many ways, Google remains the majority’s choice. As simple as it is to tell someone to “Google it”, the process behind the scenes is far more complex.

Search Engine Algorithms

One of Google’s central claims to fame can be attributed to its search engine algorithm. These algorithms make the user’s experience a top priority.

Search engines collect formulas that will help them determine the quality and relevance of a particular ad or web page. A large result of Google’s popularity came from their creation of complex algorithms which improve an individual’s search process.

Google has reported that its algorithm changes hundreds of times a year, making its results more timely and accurate than any other search engine. In addition, Google uses more than 200 ranking factors when determining which results to show to a viewer and in what order.

The precision of a search engine algorithm works to ensure that users are getting the information that they need immediately, rather than having to scroll through pages of search results.

Search Engine Features

Another substantial reason why Google is the best search engine is its various features. Search engine features are the additional elements an individual will see on the result page.

Search engine features don’t only make the user’s experience better, they can also be beneficial to the business or website. In order for businesses to get their site content to appear in search results, they should follow a few key practices:

Optimize on-page content.
Use schema markups.
Buy advertisements.

Also known as SERP features, Google offers an assortment of characteristics that provide the user with a more efficient and comprehensive search experience.

Search Engine Trends

When weighing search engine pros and cons, it’s important to mention Google Trends. These trends are search terms that are popular on Google. Businesses can benefit from search engine trends for a variety of reasons, including:

Businesses can research popular topics and see how they are currently or will be trending in the future. This allows them the opportunity to create content that will drive traffic to their site.
Businesses are able to watch the pattern of trends which gives them the advantage of knowing when to expect certain volume drops.
Businesses can also use trend patterns to anticipate and leverage a surge in specific search activities.

Google offers both basic and advanced trends, which vary depending on the precision of the data and analytics shown.

Closing Thoughts: Why Google is the Best Search Engine

While Google has successfully mastered many unique characteristics to make its search engine the most popular, it hasn’t forgotten about the basics.

At the end of the day, a reliable and efficient search engine has 3 things:

Speed. As of 2023, Google processes an average of more than 100,000 search queries per second. In addition, according to tests run in 2022, overall Google Chrome is the fastest search browser in the world when returning results.
Significance. Google is known to crawl more web pages than any other competitor, leading them to gather a more relevant set of results. Its search index contains hundreds of billions of web pages and is over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size.
Simplicity. Throughout the years, Google has kept a single-minded focus on its goals: search and the user experience. Through building A/B testing frameworks to investing in data center technology, Google has managed to keep its site clear, concise, and convenient.

Interested in improving your site’s rank in Google SERPs? Our SEO specialists know everything when it comes to optimizing websites.

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This blog was originally published on June 15, 2020, and updated on July 18, 2023.