Hummingbird probably the biggest update to Google SEO since Google’s Caffeine update in 2010.  As stated by Goodwin, Google quietly made a huge change to its core search technology in the past month, one that affects about 90 percent of searches worldwide. Calling it Hummingbird, the technological update of Google search is designed to handle more complex queries.  Caffeine, which rolled out in 2010, was designed to improve indexing speed and provide users with fresher results.  Here is a great article explaining more about Google’s Caffeine Update.

Panda and Penguin are two other major updates to the way Google searches content.  Some of the changes caused by Penguin and Panda are outlined in this infographics taken from visual.ly .

Updates like Penguin can negatively affect some websites ranking in Google.  For example, this business talked about on searchenginewatch.com lost 65% of their Google organic traffic overnight.

It may seem like a burden for business owners to keep up with all of the updates related to Google SEO.  However, there are many benefits to the updates.  See the next post to see how local businesses owners can use Google+ Local to increase their ranking in Google SEO.