Quarter 1: Jan - Mar
January; Expedia was the first big brand to get reportedly hit by
a penalty for unnatural link building, effectively losing 25% of its
search engine visibility. This was the time when Google announced that
guest blogging is a no-go, and people using this strategy for link
building should stop. This was also when Google announced a new
Googlebot user-agent for crawling mobile content, and “Googlebot-Mobile”
was retired in place of the standard Googlebot.
February; Google search became 100% secure (https), this cutting off keyword data used by SEO experts.
March; Google never confirmed an update, but SEO experts noted a
heavy increase in Google’s index volatility, indicating an update of
some sort. Google also redesigned its SERPs for desktop, with most of
these changes having to do with aesthetics.
Quarter 2: Apr - Jun
April; The notorious Heartbleed bug happened, which exploited an SSL security loophole to effect millions of websites.
May; Google rolled out Panda 4.0. Large websites such as Ask.com and eBay got effected. eBay lost $200 million in revenue.
June; Google removed authorship photos from search. Google I/O
conference also happened, where Google announced new developments,
primarily in its Android platforms. Android Wearables!
Quarter 3: Jul - Sept
July; Google released the local search algorithm known as Pigeon.
This update drastically changed which factors Google looks at when
determining local rankings, including stronger ties to traditional web
ranking signals. Matt Cutts, chief of web spam team at Google, took a
leave.
August; Google announced that it would begin using HTTPS as a ranking signal, encouraging everyone to move from HTTP to HTTPS. Also, one of the biggest news was Google killing its Authorship program once and for all.
September; Searchmetrics released their 2014 SEO Ranking Factors.
High quality content, strong page architecture, and user signals saw
the biggest increases in affecting ranking, while keyword links and
social signals both decreased in value.
Quarter 4: Oct - Dec
October; Google finally refreshed Penguin.
This was noteworthy because it meant that everyone who was hit by the
last Penguin and submitted a reconsideration request could finally get
the opportunity to be reinstated into Google’s good graces.
Microsoft laid off Duane Forrester, Bing’s longest-serving face to the
SEO community, not to mention the darling of the industry, having just
won Search Personality of the Year. Matt Cutts, who was to return in
October, decided to extend his leave 'til 2015.
November; Google ditched its Local Carousel for hotels,
restaurants, nightlight and entertainment. Mobile became much more
important to SEO as Google rolled out the mobile-friendly search label
for mobile search results and a mobile friendly test tool in Google
Webmaster Tools. This was the beginning of Google experimenting with a
new ranking algorithm for mobile friendly sites.
December; Bing released its version of Panda, and did a great job at outlining what it actually considers quality content.
How was your year? Anything wonderful happened for you? Share your
stories with us in the comments section below! Happy New Year to all,
and to all a good night :)