The Google Algorithm update 2003 was the year google started to name their updates. The following article provides clear insight into the effective changes that were made in the algorithm.
Google Algorithm Update 2003
February 2003 Update: [called Boston Update]
The first named “Google Algorithm” series of updates was the Boston Update. Starting 2003, Google started naming its updates to google search algorithm alphabetically.
The Google Dance during Boston update:
The term ‘google dance’ implies the period where google rebuilds every website’s ranking thus enhancing the search result. During this period, the SERP shows a huge variation of results for the same keyword time to time. (SERP – Search Engine Result Page).
Boston update faced the google dance due to a combo of algorithm changes and refreshment of search engine index.
April 2003 Update: [called Cassandra Update]
Casandra update of google algorithm focussed on perfection in relevance.
1. The hit-point of the update was the ability of google to find out hidden text and hidden links. Hidden links and texts were much of annoyance to google. The web developers had the ability to fool google by including links and words that helped them reach the top position in SERP. While hidden texts make the same website rank higher, hidden links were a nuisance as it acted as backlinks to other web pages.
2. The second major update in Cassandra was the ability of google to prevent back-links from co-owned domains. Google built the power to prevent the backlink counts from and to the domains owned by a single user. This makes fake backlinks disappear from the picture.
May 2003 Update: [called Dominic Update]
The exact functionality difference of Dominic update is yet unknown. The bots and crawlers of google – “Freshbot”, “Deepcrawler” spanned the internet and bounces were reported. This update is said to have changed counting and reporting of backlinks in a drastic way.
June 2003 Update: [called Esmeralda Update]
A major infrastructure change in google algorithm showed up with Esmeralda. Google dance got replace with Everflux.
Everflux: Instead of making huge monthly monolithic changes to the search index, google started making polylithic day-to-day changes.
Everflux made the google dance effect go ease and enhanced the SERP very effectively.
Esmeralda was the last monthly update released by google. Following Esmeralda, Google Algorithm update showed up as a continuous process.
July 2003 Update: [called Fritz Update]
The Fritz update just ended the google dance started up by the Boston update. The Fritz update changed the way google indexed. The index started changing daily instead of a monthly basis.
September 2003 Update: [called supplemental Index Update]
Google created a new supplemental index making a feeble step to make indexing faster and better. Some results were split-off into the supplemental index in this version. The main aim was to reduce the storage space. Google made a move to split the less relevant search results into a separate index called supplemental index. After a lot of testing, the bi-index method was found a burden. The burden was when some pages of rich content go into the supplemental index. The supplemental Index was later removed and google follows a mono-index pattern now.
November 2003 Update [called Florida Update]
Google war on spam had just begun with Florida Update. Florida made its essence as a nightmare to many websites. Google demanded more keyword focus and developed SEO tactics to bring the website to search results. This made the early 2000 SEO techniques almost null. Adapting to the new algorithm by making rich content was the only option left for survival.
Thus, Google improved the search engine SERP greatly via the google algorithm update 2003. The efforts of google didn’t go in vain. This laid the perfect platform for the future Google Algorithm . For brief history on Algorithm updates, click here for wiki !