Itagalpura, Rajanukunte, Yelahanka, Bengaluru- 560064

School of Management

VALUE ADDED COURSE

BASIC SEARCH ENGINE – SOMV2051

HISTORY OF SEARCH ENGINE AND MAJOR GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES

Name: SUNIL KUMAR M

Roll Number: 20202MDM0016

Under the guidance of

DR. CHITAMBAR GUPTA

Associate Professor

School of Management
HISTORY OF SEARCH ENGINE AND MAJOR
GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES

ABSTRACT
Search engine is a challenging task. Search engines index tens to hundreds of millions of web
pages: involving a comparable number of distinct terms. They answer tens of millions of queries
every day. Despite the importance of large-scale search engines on the web, very little academic
research has been done on them. Furthermore, due to rapid advance in technology and web
proliferation, creating a web search engine today is very different from years ago.

Search engine the first such detailed public description we know of to date. Apart from the
problems of scaling, traditional search techniques to data of this magnitude, there are new
technical challenges involved with using the additional information present in hypertext to
produce better search results. This paper addresses about the history of the search engine and
also major Google algorithm updates.

INTRODUCTION
Search Engine is a software program that searches the Internet (bunch of websites) based on the
words that we designate as search terms (query words). It looks through their own databases of
information in order to find what it is that we are looking for. Web Search Engines are a good
example for massively sized Information Retrieval Systems.

The amount of information on the web is growing rapidly, as well as the number of new users
inexperienced in the art of web research. People are likely to surf the web using its link graph,
often starting with high quality human maintained indices such as Yahoo! or with search
engines. Human maintained lists cover popular topics effectively but are subjective, expensive to
build and maintain, slow to improve, and cannot cover all esoteric topics. Automated search
engines that rely on keyword matching usually return too many low quality matches. To make
matters worse, some advertisers attempt to gain people's attention by taking measures meant to
mislead automated search engines. We have built a large-scale search engine which addresses
many of the problems of existing systems. It makes especially heavy use of the additional
structure present in hypertext to provide much higher quality search results.
HISTORY OF SEARCH ENGINE
IN 1990 first search engine is Archie. A year after they invented the World Wide Web (WWW),
the early search engine crawled through an index of downloadable files.

During 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the WWW, created a virtual library to help users
find URLs for different websites. The CERN web servers hosted the library at the beginning of
the internet.

In 1992, Jump Station brought a new leap with their linear search which showed a page’s title
and header in the same results.

IN 1994, David Filo and Jerry Yang create Yahoo! Search. The site was the first collection of
web pages across the internet. They include man-made descriptions for the URLs. Site owners
can add Informational sites for free, but commercial sites had to pay Rs.9000/year.

WebCrawler– the same year that Yahoo! Search launched saw the launch of Web Crawler. They
create the first search engine to index entire pages. The amount of data required to do the search
engine too slow to use during the day.

During 1995, Lycos search engine also launched in 1994. The search engine cataloged over
394,000 documents by August. By January 1995, they had over 1.5 million documents cataloged.

IN 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the predecessor to Google BackRub. The initial
idea used back links to help rank websites for better search.

The back links show you how one website that links to another site counts as a vote. This idea is
the basis of a website’s authority. Today’s algorithm still relies on the same initial concept
AskJeeves– The first search engine where they attempt to have human editors respond to search
queries. The site became easy prey to spam.

Inktomi – A pioneer in the paid advertising model Inktomi provided an early precursor to pay-
per-click (PPC) ads.

Lycos– Still the largest search engine. Lycos now has over 60 million documents indexed.

IN 1998, Google officially launches.

The company was the first to use a PPC model successfully.

In the year 1999, Sequoia Capital and others invest in Google. Also, AOL selects Google as a
search partner.

The Teoma engine is released in 2000

In 2001, the search engine Excite goes bankrupt and is bought by for $10 million.

AskJeeves– The search engine buys Teoma to replace their direct search engine.

During 2002, Yahoo! acquires other search engines to find search results for customers
organically. Previously, they outsourced the service to third-party vendors.
In the year 2003, Overture bought by AllTheWeb for $70 million and Inktomi bought by Yahoo!
for $235 million. Yahoo! then buys Overture for $1.63 billion.

Google– They announces the first search algorithm update at Northeaster’s SES Boston, which is
why it is called the “Boston” update.

IN 2004, Microsoft launches their new MSN search engine.

In the year 2005, Microsoft’s MSN search engine starts to use its in-house technology in favor of
Yahoo! results.
Ask– IAC (Ticketmaster.com and Match.com) buy Ask Jeeves for $1.85 Billion. They change
the name to Ask.com and drop the Teoma search platform.

No follow– The major search engines use the “no follow” tag to clean up spammy blogs.

Google created “Universal Search.” Instead of the traditional 10-listings, they added features for
News, Video, Images, Local, and other verticals.

In 2008, “Google Suggest” launch provides dropdowns of suggested topics.

MSN/Live Search becomes Bing in 2009.

In the year 2010, Google improved their web indexing system to enhance fresh search results by
50%. They call the update Caffeine.

Google Instant shows real-time search results for users as they enter a query.

During 2011, to create a more structured internet, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft (Bing) create
Schema.org.
Google– The search engine launches the first significant algorithm change to improve query
results. The Google Panda algorithm reduces the effectiveness of content farms and scraper sites.
The change affects 12% of all US search results.

In 2012, Following the Panda release, Google launched the Google Penguin algorithm update.
This update penalizes sites buying links or using link networks to boost their search rankings.

During 2013, Google revolutionizes their search algorithm again with their Hummingbird
update. The algorithm is the first attempt by a search engine to understand the human intent
behind a search query. The history of search until then focused on how to improve language
queries.

In the year 2014, Yahoo! becomes the default search engine for Mozilla Firefox in the US.

Google– the Pigeon algorithm updates the search engines local search results. They want to
provide accurate, relevant local search results for users.

Google– discusses how website security is now a ranking factor with their HTTPS
everywhere campaign.

In 2015, Google unleashes Mobilegeddon to force websites to add mobile-friendly websites. The
change acknowledges the rapid rise in mobile search use.

Furthermore, Google releases Rank Brain, a machine learning program that automates the
ranking algorithm.

Bing– Copying Google, they add a mobile-friendly algorithm.

In the year 2016, Google Possum attacks local spam sites just like the “no follow” tag a decade
earlier removed spammy websites.

Google also integrated the Google Penguin update in the core ranking algorithm to ensure the
death of link farms

During 2017, Google penalized sites using interstitial and pop-up ads that destroy the mobile
experience.

In the year 2018, Google confirmed a broad core algorithm update had rolled out to benefit
“under rewarded” pages and another update target to content relevance

In 2019 and 2020, Google confirmed a core update (a.k.a, Florida 2) and it will be a big, Update
targeted YMYL categories and also content landing pages

MAJOR GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES

1. Panda
It is released on February 24, 2011 and its hazards Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-
generated spam; keyword stuffing.

How it works: The Panda algorithm update assigns a so-called “quality score” to web pages.
This score is then used as a ranking factor. Initially, the effects of Panda were mild, but in
January 2016 it was permanently incorporated into Google’s core algorithm. Since then, update
rollouts have become more frequent, so both Panda penalties and recoveries now happen faster.

2. Penguin
It is released on April 24, 2012 and the risks are Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-
optimized anchor text.

How it works: Google Penguin’s objective is to down-rank sites whose backlinks look
unnatural. This update put an end to low-effort link building, like buying links from link farms
and PBNs.

3. Hummingbird
It is released on August 22, 2013 and its hazards are Keyword stuffing; low-quality content.

How it works: The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google better interpret search queries and
provide results that match searcher intent (as opposed to the individual terms within the query).
While keywords continue to be important, the Hummingbird algorithm makes it possible for a
page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered. This is
achieved with the help of natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-
occurring terms and synonyms.

4. Mobile
It is released on April 21, 2015and its threats are, Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor
mobile usability.

How it works: This, and subsequent mobile search updates (2018, 2020) have shifted the focus
from a desktop to a mobile version of your website. Today, Google ranks all websites based on
how fast and user-friendly their mobile versions are.

5. Rank Brain
It is released on October 26, 2015 and its risks are Lack of query-specific relevance; shallow
content; poor UX.

How it works: Rank Brain is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. It is a machine

learning system that helps Google understand the meaning behind queries and serve best-
matching search results in response to those queries. Google calls Rank Brain the third most
important ranking factor. While we don’t know the exact formula behind this major update, the
consensus is that Rank Brain is responsible for customizing a user’s Google search results.
Basically, Google goes beyond a person’s search query and takes into account the larger context,
like synonyms, implied words, and personal search history.

CONCLUSION

Search engine is searchable database which allows locating the information on the Internet by
submitting the keywords. It is a very useful tool for quickly and easily searches for the
information Online. It is important to formulate the search statement using advanced searching
techniques to filter the most relevant information out of search engines huge database more
efficiently and effectively.

REFERENCE
https://books.google.co.in/books/about/An_Introduction_to_Search_Engines

https://www.seomechanic.com/complete-history-search-engines

https://searchengineland.com/8-major-google-algorithm-updates

http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/archive/wcp/stats/size.htm