Staying Up-To-Date With Algorithm Updates
Staying up-to-date with algorithm updates can mean the difference between a high ranking website and a low ranking website. For example, Google’s mobilegeddon algorithm update increased the prevalence of mobile-optimised websites in the mobile search engine results pages (mobile SERPs) while decreasing the ranking of sites that do not have a mobile version of their website. For search engine optimisers who were not aware of these updates, had a site that was not mobile optimised, and relied on mobile traffic for site visitors, they probably realised soon after that their sites experienced a significant drop in traffic and possibly even in earnings.
So, now that you know that keeping up with algorithm updates is important, you may be wondering how you can find out about algorithm updates in the first place. Well, there are quite a few sources that you can choose from.
The Google Webmaster Central
The Google Webmaster Central, despite being a Blogspot blog, is Google’s official blog and the best source of information about upcoming updates.
SEO Blogs
SEO blogs such as this one usually cover algorithm updates before they’re released. A few examples of SEO blogs that cover these updates include Moz, Search Engine Land, and Sycosure (this site).
SEO Forums
Forums will usually start buzzing once they read about a new update on Google’s official webamster site or on an SEO blog. SEO forum members are also useful at discovering hidden updates that SEO blogs may have missed. As I’ll cover the topic of SEO forums a little bit later, I won’t list any right now.