Fritz: A New Beginning for Algo Updates

The Fritz update came a month after Esmeralda and brought with it the change that was rolled out in June 2003. Matt Cutts, a spokesperson for Google, still called it Google Dance when he made the announcement about how the two patches modified the way the search engine updated its index.

What’s It For

Fritz marked the end of the Google Dance and completed what Esmeralda started. The team confirmed that they changed their update policy from a “monolithic monthly event,” as Cutts put it, to smaller daily refreshes named Everflux. This could also be an initiative to future-proof the search engine since they won’t have to take their data centers out of rotation when installing a new web index.

These are the differences between algorithm updates, data refreshes, and index updates:

• Algorithm Update – Changes in the search results characterize this type of upgrade. While this can occur at any time, people tend to notice the more significant ones which are less frequent.
• Data Refresh – With this, information is updated within an existing algorithm. These are less impactful than algorithm updates.
• Index Update – An index update, on the other hand, relates closely to a data refresh since it’s when fresh information is sent or installed to data centers. From 2000 until 2003 with Fritz, these type of updates happened once a month. Also known as Google Dance, it took about six to eight days to complete since each data center had to be paused for the developers to load an entirely new web index.

What Were Its Effects

Webmasters and SEO specialists felt immense relief since they’ll no longer feel the violent tremors of Google Dance. While there were still ranking fluctuations with Fritz, there weren’t any significant losses in SERP unless, of course, they violated the search engine’s guidelines. As mentioned above, this may have also prepared Google for its massive subscriber base as the company grew to include more services such as email and cloud storage.

What It Means for You

Google continues to conduct increment changes daily. No one truly knows the exact steps to take to get that coveted first-page ranking easily. Nonetheless, because the search engine continues to improve and the system has been more or less stable for quite some time now, many have come to understand SEO and the basic principles that you can use to boost your website’s position in the SERPs.

Here are a few tips to help you with your SEO campaign:

• Improve Your Site Speed
  Google values user experience and considers it as one of the primary ranking factors. The pace by which your page or overall site loads determines if visitors will read what you have to say or close the tab and abandon your website. Even just a second’s delay can result in a considerable loss in conversions, so audit your site and test its loading speed through tools such as GTmetrix or Pingdom.
• Link Out to Relevant Websites
  Link building continues as a critical part of SEO. You can start this strategy by writing compelling and informative content then citing trustworthy sites as sources to support your claims. This can open up opportunities for you to guest blog for those domains which allow you to introduce your brand to their established readership by incorporating your link in the content.
• Focus on Readability Not Keywords
  The primary goal for your content writing campaign should be to write for humans first while integrating relevant keywords in the post without compromising comprehensibility. Today’s SEO emphasizes user engagement so you should create interesting articles that can entice your target audience to keep coming back to your site to know more about your products and services.
• Find Tools to Track Your Campaign
  You should already have web analytics tools that can help you track important metrics for your SEO campaign. This type of software can provide you with valuable insights on your traffic volume, user experience, keyword research, mobile readiness, and site security, which you can use to make smart decisions for future strategies. Google developed Webmaster Tools that you can use for free.
• Create Attention-Grabbing Meta Descriptions
  Interesting meta descriptions can heavily influence users to click on your link once it pops up on search engines. Also, remember that the summaries should be unique for each page and shouldn’t just be copied sentences or paragraphs from your blog post. WordPress users can install Yoast plugins which allow you to create new meta descriptions for each article.