Review of Google Algorithm Updates 2020: Core Updates, Passage Indexing, and Page Experience

This year will forever be known as the year that brought introspection, slowed people down, and had them focus less on business and more on family. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, business must go on, and so it did with SEO and Google’s numerous algorithm updates throughout the year.

From core updates to machine learning efforts with BERT, passage indexing (or is it passage ranking?), the upcoming Google Page Experience update, and many unconfirmed changes — we would not call 2020 a slow year for Google search algorithms.

Google’s January, May, and December core updates rocked the SEO industry

January 2020 core update. Google kicked things off early in 2020 with the first core update of the year, the January 2020 core update, which started to roll out on January 13, 2020. While most core updates take two weeks to fully roll out, Google said by January 16th, it was mostly done. As with all core updates, the January 2020 core update was significant and impacted many sites.

May 2020 core update. A few months later, we had our next core update. This was after speculation that maybe Google would not release a core update during the pandemic — but it did. The next core update was the May 2020 core update released on May 4, 2020. It took about two weeks to roll out and was completed by May 18, 2020. This update was bigger than the January 2020 update; some even called it an absolute monster.

Then, things went silent for several months — almost seven to be exact.

December 2020 core update. On December 3, 2020, Google released the December 2020 core update. This update was released right after Black Friday and Cyber Monday but still before the holidays, which upset many in the industry. We saw spikes with this update on December 4th and December 10th, and it officially stopped rolling out on December 16, 2020. Based on some reports, this update was even bigger than the May 2020 core update.

Google BERT expands to all queries

In 2019, Google launched BERT for 10% of all queries. That changed in 2020, as it is now used for almost 100% of all English-language queries. Google mentioned at an event that BERT has helped improve search results on “specific searches” by 7%.

We also learned that Google’s efforts to integrate BERT into search were code-named DeepRank, a project Google started possibly as early as 2017. Google expanded the use of BERT to many areas, including matching stories to fact-checking.

Passage indexing, I mean ranking, was announced

Google introduced passage indexing, which should really be named passage ranking, during its SearchOn event. Passage indexing helps Google zero in on specific passages of content on a page and rank those parts of your pages in Google search. This will help pages that are not well optimized for search. Google did not change how it indexes content, but rather how it will rank that content.

Google also said passage-based indexing will affect 7% of search queries across all languages when fully rolled out globally. Although we expected it to go live in 2020, it has not yet. Expect it in early 2021.

Page experience update & core web vitals

In May 2020, Google announced a new set of ranking factors — the Google Page Experience update. This includes several signals, including established ones such as the mobile-friendly update, Page Speed Update, HTTPS ranking boost, intrusive interstitials penalty, and safe browsing penalty, as well as new signals in the form of Google’s new core web vitals. Core web vitals include metrics such as largest contentful paint (LCP), first input delay (FID), and cumulative layout shift.

When this goes live in May 2021, Google will no longer only serve AMP pages in the Top Stories carousel but also pages that perform well with these measures.

This new page experience update will apply only to mobile rankings, not desktop rankings, for now. An exciting feature may be the visual indicator that Google could launch with this in May 2021.

Other Google algorithm changes, updates, tweaks, or bugs

There was more: We had many unconfirmed Google algorithm updates, some that felt significant and some that were somewhat confirmed. In August, Google experienced a bug with its search results that caused issues for a while. We might have also had a bug related to local search that Google confirmed.

Other changes Google announced include:

• New advancements in language understanding with AI including a new spelling algorithm, the ability to index specific individual passages from web pages, and new techniques to help people find a wider range of results.
• Google Maps updates include an expansion of live “busyness” information and details about businesses’ COVID-19-related health and safety precautions. In the near future, users will be able to find information about a restaurant, store, or business in Live View using AR.
• Users can use the mic icon in the Google search bar or the Assistant to ask “what’s this song?” or “search a song” and then start humming for 10-15 seconds to get results for the song.
• New Lens and AR features in Google Search to discover (and even style) products as users browse online. With augmented reality, Google is allowing users to experience retail showrooms virtually.
• Duplex technology is now calling businesses to automatically update key details like store hours and takeout options on Search and Maps. This year, Google said Duplex has been used to make over three million updates to businesses like pharmacies, restaurants, and grocery stores, seen over 20 billion times in Maps and search.

More in 2021

For 2021, we already know to expect the upcoming Google Page Experience update in May. The passage indexing change is also expected to go live soon, likely in early 2021. Mobile-first indexing will be in full force in March 2021, which may not be a ranking algorithm change but could still lead to ranking adjustments based on indexing changes. So, we can anticipate many changes next year.

But expect more of the same as well: More core updates, and the need to build content and websites that endure those updates. Google will continue to advance in understanding languages and queries better. Google will likely make more tweaks to search to improve relevancy.

In short, expect, and even embrace, change because that is what SEOs do best — adapt and anticipate changes.

Catch up on the biggest PPC news of the year or zoom out to see how 2020 unfolded for the SEO industry.

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