Search industry has seen its share of updates over the years. The folks that have been in the industry long enough know Google introduces multiple changes in its search algorithm yearly.
These changes range from being minor to major changes. Panda, for instance, affected the search engine result page (SERP) in substantial ways.
When such changes happen, there tend to be various articles in the industry notifying the trend and changes.
Usually articles are news based in nature: “Google launched this change or those changes.” But they lack an informative recommendation on how the reader should digest this information.
In this article, we’ll review the major SERP changes brought to us in 2018. For each update, we’ll discuss a practical tip to respond accordingly.
2018 SERP changes and recommendations
2018 was not a dull year! Google released several SERP feature updates.
As Google updates its algorithm to better align with users, the SERPs have gone through a look and feel makeover.
These changes always create new challenges for the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals. We must constantly develop new SEO strategies to ensure that our content is still optimized to be featured in SERPs.
Let’s take a look at some of the changes we see in today’s SERPs.
One of the biggest changes that has occurred? Gone are the traditional text-only SERPs.
Today’s SERPs highlight video, images, featured snippets, knowledge graphs and related products.
Therefore, one has to consider the different content format that are being displayed in the SERPs. And develop strategies to create and optimize these group of content types.
1. The HTTPs rigmarole
In July, it was confirmed that chrome security warnings were really