Google changes its algorithm constantly, so an update is hardly newsworthy unless it causes major changes. Something pretty big apparently happened with the algorithm on June 17 – so big that Moz is calling it the “Colossus” update.
I don’t know if that name’s going to catch on or not, but according to its MozCast product, which measures the “temperature” of patterns of the Google algorithm, the update came in at 101.8°F. For comparison, the first Penguin update only registered at 93.1°.
Google has confirmed an update, and said that it’s not Panda, Penguin, or HTTPS-related. Other than that, they’re really not giving out much in the way of details.
Search Engine Land shares this statement from the company: “This is not a Panda update. As you know, we’re always making improvements to our search algorithms and the web is constantly evolving. We’re going to continue to work on improvements across the board.
@dr_pete just because you never asked me before: I love the name you came up with (Securageddon), but it's nothing to do with https AFAIK
— Gary Illyes (@methode) June 18, 2015
@dr_pete can't comment more on this though, we make hundreds of changes every year, you know the rest
— Gary Illyes (@methode) June 18, 2015
SEL’s Barry Schwartz has an interesting theory in that the major change in temperature could have come from Wikipedia going HTTPS which the Wikimedia Foundation recently announced. The thinking is that this could have a substantial impact given that Wikipedia ranks at the top of search results for so many queries.
Either way, Google gets updated constantly, and it’s possible that they didn’t really do anything all that significant this time.
Images via Moz, Thinkstock