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Best Practice 1: Monitor Google Updates
Why it matters: Google updates its algorithm frequently, which directly impacts rankings.
How to do it:
Follow the Google Search Central blog — there’s an official announcement of every update.
Read SEO blogs and communities (like Search Engine Journal, Moz, or Ahrefs) regularly.
Monitor your website’s performance with rank tracking tools (like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console).
Pro Tip: Keep your team, clients, and bosses informed about the effects of updates.
Best Practice 2: Audit the website regularly
Why it is important: Over time, technical errors, content issues, and backlink problems can crop up, which can cause rankings to drop.
How to do it:
Technical SEO Audit: Check website speed, mobile-friendliness, broken links, etc.
On-Page SEO Audit: Check title tags, meta descriptions, content quality, keywords, and internal linking.
Off-Page SEO Audit: Check the quality of backlinks and spammy links.
Pro Tip: Keep a record of your audit, list problems, note what you fix, and set a timeline for the next audit (e.g. every 3 months).
Best Practice 3: Put the user first
Why it is important: Google places a lot of importance on user experience. If users do not spend time on the website or bounce back quickly, the ranking can fall.

How to do it:
Create readable and engaging content — with easy language and clear headings.

Improve page speed and ensure a mobile-friendly website.

Ensure trust signals like reviews, testimonials and a secure (HTTPS) website.

Pro Tip: Understand the user’s needs first — SEO signals will improve automatically.

Best Practice 4: Always keep testing

Why is it important: Every website has a different audience. There is no guarantee that what works for others will work for you too.
How to do it:
Do A/B split testing — try different versions to see which one engages more.
Use heatmaps tools (like Hotjar or Crazy Egg) to see which parts users are clicking on.
Analyze the impact of changes with SEO testing tools (like SEOTesting.com).
Pro tip: Keep a testing journal — record what worked and what didn’t, so you can make smarter decisions next time.
Best Practice 5: Be part of the SEO community
Why it matters: SEO is constantly changing. Staying connected to the community helps you learn new trends, hacks, and strategies.
How to do it:
Follow top SEO experts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Join SEO forums like Reddit’s r/SEO and SEO-related Facebook groups.

Share your experiments and learnings — the more you share, the more the community will help.

Pro Tip: Staying active in the SEO community also increases the chances of new ideas and collaborations.

Final Thought:
If you follow these 5 SEO Best Practices consistently, both your SEO game and website ranking will improve.

If you need details on a specific SEO tool or strategy, let me know — I’ll make a breakdown on that as well.

Core Web Vitals are a set of Google ranking factors focused on user experience.
Google rarely reveals ranking factors, making Core Web Vitals significant.
They align with best SEO practices and reinforce past algorithm updates like Caffeine.
Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor

Google’s Gary Illyes clarified that Core Web Vitals are “a” ranking factor, not “the” ranking factor.
They influence rankings but are not the sole determinant.
What Core Web Vitals Measure

Google defines them as “real-world experience metrics.”
These factors impact how users interact with your site, including:
Page load time
Site stability
Site security
The presence of disruptive elements like pop-ups
Impact of Core Web Vitals on Rankings

They affect both mobile and desktop rankings.
They influence eligibility for Google’s Top Stories feature.
Previously, AMP was required for Top Stories; now, meeting Core Web Vitals’ minimum score is necessary.
Google’s research suggests improving Core Web Vitals can reduce site abandonment by 24%.
Timeline for Core Web Vitals Implementation

Announced in July 2020.
Google confirmed the update would roll out in 2021.
Measuring Core Web Vitals Performance

Google provides tools to analyze Core Web Vitals:
Google Search Console:
Offers a Core Web Vitals report in the sidebar.
Categorizes URLs as Poor, Needs Improvement, or Good for both mobile and desktop.
The goal is to have more “Good” URLs than “Poor” ones.
Google Lighthouse:
Analyzes where pages struggle with speed.
Provides specific recommendations for improvements.
Using Google Lighthouse for Optimization

Helps diagnose speed and performance issues.
Offers actionable steps to enhance Core Web Vitals scores.
Google’s official documentation provides additional insights and best practices.
The Bigger Picture: SEO & User Engagement

Core Web Vitals impact SEO rankings, user engagement, and conversions.
Monitoring and improving them is a best practice for digital marketing.
By following these steps, you can optimize your site’s performance, improve rankings, and enhance the overall user experience.

Step 1: Establishing Expertise
Consistently publish high-quality content on your own blog.
Contribute as an author on other reputable blogs.
Create an About Page that clearly outlines:
Who you or your brand is.
Your experience in the industry.
Any awards or recognition received.
Develop Author Bio Pages that include:
Certifications, degrees, and qualifications.
Other platforms you have contributed to.
Links to media mentions that establish your expertise.
If your site has multiple authors, ensure each has a detailed bio showcasing their credibility.
Step 2: Building Authority
Authority is built when other websites recognize and reference you as an expert.
Ways to prove authority include:
Links & citations from media and press mentions.
Speaking engagements or conferences you’ve participated in.
Content shares & discussions on social media.
Branded search volume (how often people search for your brand).
Wikipedia pages & mentions referencing your expertise.
Evaluate what makes someone else an authority—apply the same strategies to your own site.
Step 3: Ensuring Trustworthiness
Clearly display accurate contact information for your business.
If you operate an ecommerce or transaction-based site:
Provide a clear return policy.
List accepted payment methods.
Mention shipping and delivery times.
Include terms & conditions in an accessible location.
Secure your site with HTTPS for better security (recommended by Google).
Google evaluates external trust factors, such as:
General brand sentiment based on online conversations.
Customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot, BBB, Yelp, or TripAdvisor.
Step 4: Understanding Quality Raters & Google’s Evaluation
Google’s algorithms are advanced, but they still use human quality raters to evaluate websites.
These raters follow the Google Quality Rater Guidelines to assess:
Your website’s trustworthiness and relevance.
Your site’s alignment with Google’s quality standards.
You can review the Quality Rater Guideline handbook at any time to:
Ensure your website meets all evaluation criteria.
Stay updated on any new guidelines introduced by Google.
A handy checklist has been created to help improve your EEAT score—check the link in the notes.
Step 5: Putting It Into Practice
If you’ve been following the course, analyze the site(s) you selected using the EEAT framework.
Evaluate the site through the eyes of a Google Quality Rater:
How would you rate its EEAT score?
What improvements can be made?
If you haven’t completed the previous exercises, review earlier lessons and start your analysis now!
By following these steps, you can enhance your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, ensuring your website ranks better and builds credibility with both users and search engines.

Why is YMYL important?
Google judges websites more strictly that can impact people’s life decisions – such as:

Health advice websites (e.g., homeopathy, fitness blogs)
Financial/investment guides
Legal advice pages
Safety tips or parenting blogs
Myth Busted: It is not necessary to take money to have a YMYL website. Sites that only give advice can also fall under the YMYL category.

Part 2: EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust)
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust.
Google evaluates these 4 things when it decides which position to rank a website.

EEAT Breakdown:

1. Experience
   Google wants to see if the content creator has first-hand experience.
   Example: If you are writing a product review, it is important to prove that you have personally used the product (such as a review with your photo/video).
   AI content gets less value because AI does not have first-hand experience.
2. Expertise (Visheshagyaata)
   Google looks at how much knowledge the creator has shown in their field.
   Example:
   The website’s “About Us” page should have a detailed bio that shows expertise.
   It also checks whether other websites and people mention you as an expert.
   Pro Tip: Highlighting client reviews, case studies, and achievements is helpful.
3. Authoritativeness (Prabhavshilta)
   It checks whether people and websites in the industry refer to you as a trusted source.
   Example:
   Backlinks from reputed sites (e.g., news sites or industry blogs)
   How famous your brand is and how much people trust it (e.g., social media mentions)
   Pro Tip: Work on PR and link-building strategy — it is important to get backlinks from trusted sources.
4. Trust (Viswasniyata)
   Google says that trust is the most important pillar of the EEAT.
   If a website is not trustworthy, it will not rank no matter how much knowledge and authority it has.
   To build trust:
   Keep an HTTPS secure website
   Don’t post fake or misleading content
   Show real-world proof through reviews, testimonials, and case studies
   Final Thought:
   YMYL websites need to provide high-quality, trusted content, otherwise rankings can go down.
   EEAT is important for every website – no matter what niche you are in.
   Trust is the biggest factor – no strategy will work without trust.

1. Types of Algorithmic Updates
   Algorithmic updates can be categorized into three main types:
   Content-related updates
   Technical-related updates
   Link-related (off-site) updates
2. Content-Related Updates
   Google focuses on promoting content that is relevant, trustworthy, and helpful.
   Detailed breakdown of content updates will come later, covering concepts like E-E-A-T and YAML.
   Following Google’s Helpful Content Update (introduced in August 2022) remains crucial for current and future content strategies.
   Key points to remember:
   Content should be created by people, for people.
   As AI content becomes more widespread, Google prioritizes content written by humans with firsthand experience and unique perspectives.
   AI-generated content, while easy to produce, may not perform well in SEO over time.
3. Technical Updates
   Technical updates usually focus on improving user experience and site performance.
   Websites should:
   Load quickly
   Be easy to navigate on different devices
   Ensure security (e.g., HTTPS)
   Be built with modern frameworks that search engines can crawl easily
4. Off-Site (Link-Related) Updates
   These updates are less frequent but have a wider impact when they occur.
   They mainly combat link spam to ensure websites earn natural, trustworthy, and relevant links.
   High-quality links continue to be important.
   Brand signals might play a bigger role in the future for determining site authority and trustworthiness.
5. Future Considerations
   Stay aware of emerging technologies like AI and AR and how they might impact SEO.
   Think like a Google engineer — consider how you would improve search quality if you were responsible for the algorithm.
   Focus on building a site that is authoritative and trustworthy for users.
6. Summary
   Understand the types of Google algorithm updates: content, technical, and off-site.
   Stay proactive and adapt to changes to maintain or grow organic traffic.
7. Practical Exercise
   Revisit the website you picked earlier for study.
   Evaluate its content’s trustworthiness, quality, and user experience.
   Take notes on your observations.
   Reassess the website later as you continue learning and work towards a detailed SEO project.

1. Types of Algorithmic Updates
   Algorithmic updates can be categorized into three main types:
   Content-related updates
   Technical-related updates
   Link-related (off-site) updates
2. Content-Related Updates
   Google focuses on promoting content that is relevant, trustworthy, and helpful.
   Detailed breakdown of content updates will come later, covering concepts like E-E-A-T and YAML.
   Following Google’s Helpful Content Update (introduced in August 2022) remains crucial for current and future content strategies.
   Key points to remember:
   Content should be created by people, for people.
   As AI content becomes more widespread, Google prioritizes content written by humans with firsthand experience and unique perspectives.
   AI-generated content, while easy to produce, may not perform well in SEO over time.
3. Technical Updates
   Technical updates usually focus on improving user experience and site performance.
   Websites should:
   Load quickly
   Be easy to navigate on different devices
   Ensure security (e.g., HTTPS)
   Be built with modern frameworks that search engines can crawl easily
4. Off-Site (Link-Related) Updates
   These updates are less frequent but have a wider impact when they occur.
   They mainly combat link spam to ensure websites earn natural, trustworthy, and relevant links.
   High-quality links continue to be important.
   Brand signals might play a bigger role in the future for determining site authority and trustworthiness.
5. Future Considerations
   Stay aware of emerging technologies like AI and AR and how they might impact SEO.
   Think like a Google engineer — consider how you would improve search quality if you were responsible for the algorithm.
   Focus on building a site that is authoritative and trustworthy for users.
6. Summary
   Understand the types of Google algorithm updates: content, technical, and off-site.
   Stay proactive and adapt to changes to maintain or grow organic traffic.
7. Practical Exercise
   Revisit the website you picked earlier for study.
   Evaluate its content’s trustworthiness, quality, and user experience.
   Take notes on your observations.
   Reassess the website later as you continue learning and work towards a detailed SEO project.
8. Off-Site (Link-Related) Updates
   These updates are less frequent but have a wider impact when they occur.
   They mainly combat link spam to ensure websites earn natural, trustworthy, and relevant links.
   High-quality links continue to be important.
   Brand signals might play a bigger role in the future for determining site authority and trustworthiness.
9. Future Considerations
   Stay aware of emerging technologies like AI and AR and how they might impact SEO.
   Think like a Google engineer — consider how you would improve search quality if you were responsible for the algorithm.
   Focus on building a site that is authoritative and trustworthy for users.
10. Summary
    Understand the types of Google algorithm updates: content, technical, and off-site.
    Stay proactive and adapt to changes to maintain or grow organic traffic.
11. Practical Exercise
    Revisit the website you picked earlier for study.
    Evaluate its content’s trustworthiness, quality, and user experience.
    Take notes on your observations.
    Reassess the website later as you continue learning and work

Core Web Vitals are a set of Google ranking factors focused on user experience.
Google rarely reveals ranking factors, making Core Web Vitals significant.
They align with best SEO practices and reinforce past algorithm updates like Caffeine.
Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor

Google’s Gary Illyes clarified that Core Web Vitals are “a” ranking factor, not “the” ranking factor.
They influence rankings but are not the sole determinant.
What Core Web Vitals Measure

Google defines them as “real-world experience metrics.”
These factors impact how users interact with your site, including:
Page load time
Site stability
Site security
The presence of disruptive elements like pop-ups
Impact of Core Web Vitals on Rankings

They affect both mobile and desktop rankings.
They influence eligibility for Google’s Top Stories feature.
Previously, AMP was required for Top Stories; now, meeting Core Web Vitals’ minimum score is necessary.
Google’s research suggests improving Core Web Vitals can reduce site abandonment by 24%.
Timeline for Core Web Vitals Implementation

Announced in July 2020.
Google confirmed the update would roll out in 2021.
Measuring Core Web Vitals Performance

Google provides tools to analyze Core Web Vitals:
Google Search Console:
Offers a Core Web Vitals report in the sidebar.
Categorizes URLs as Poor, Needs Improvement, or Good for both mobile and desktop.
The goal is to have more “Good” URLs than “Poor” ones.
Google Lighthouse:
Analyzes where pages struggle with speed.
Provides specific recommendations for improvements.
Using Google Lighthouse for Optimization

Helps diagnose speed and performance issues.
Offers actionable steps to enhance Core Web Vitals scores.
Google’s official documentation provides additional insights and best practices.
The Bigger Picture: SEO & User Engagement

Core Web Vitals impact SEO rankings, user engagement, and conversions.
Monitoring and improving them is a best practice for digital marketing.
By following these steps, you can optimize your site’s performance, improve rankings, and enhance the overall user experience.

1. Evolution of Search Engine and Importance of SEO
   Earlier, search engines used to decide the ranking of a website based only on links, keywords and content. But today, many new factors like website speed, mobile usability, semantic search are also considered. Google has now started understanding user behavior and satisfaction by using AI and machine learning, which plays a very big role in ranking.
2. Role of RankBrain and BERT
   RankBrain: This is a machine learning algorithm that makes Google’s algorithms even better. Its job is to see how much a website matches the user’s intent.
   BERT: Its full form is “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers”. This helps Google understand natural language processing (NLP), so that Google can better understand the relationship between a query and content.
3. Personalization and AI-powered Search

Google now analyzes the user’s location, device, and search history along with the query. With the help of AI, Google now not only answers your current search, but can also predict your future searches.

4. User Behavior Signals and SEO Impact

A big debate in the SEO industry was whether Google uses user behavior signals? Now it has been confirmed from a leaked document that Google analyzes:

Click-through rate (CTR) – How many people are clicking on a result

Dwell Time – How much time is the user spending on a page

Bounce Rate – Is the user coming back to the search results immediately?

All these signals tell Google how useful a website is.

5. SpamBrain – AI-based Spam Prevention
   Google’s SpamBrain algorithm is an AI-based spam detection system that:

Detects spammy links and paid backlinks
Identifies hacked websites and malicious content
Its main aim is to control unfair SEO practices.

6. Future of Search with AI + AR

Now Google is not limited to just text and images, but is bringing new features using Augmented Reality (AR) and AI:

You can search for an object by taking a photo of it

You can ask questions related to it by uploading a video (2024 I/O conference announcement)

7. Conclusion

If we compare the earlier search engines and today’s AI-driven search engines, we can see that Google has moved from keyword-based matching to AI-powered contextual search. Today SEO is not just a game of keywords, but has become a combination of user experience, intent and behavior analysis.

In the coming time, we will talk in more detail about new SEO techniques and changes in the visual appearance of search results. 🚀

If you want to understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) properly, then first you must know how a search engine works. When you understand the working of a search engine, you will also understand how SEO techniques work and why.

The main purpose of SEO is to improve the ranking of the website, so that when a user searches for something on Google or any search engine, your website appears in the top results.

3 Main steps of Search Engine :-

Search engine processes any website in 3 main steps:

Crawling (finding new web pages)

Indexing (storing page information)

Ranking (showing best pages in search results)

Now let’s understand them in detail.

1. Crawling – How does a search engine find new web pages?

Search engine uses crawlers or spiders to find new websites or pages. These robots follow links from one page to another page and scan new content.

If your website has quality backlinks (which other good websites create for your site), then Google crawls your site quickly. This is an important part of off-site SEO.

How to tell Google about your website quickly?

Submit your website to Google Search Console.

Upload a sitemap so that Google knows which pages are on the site.

Improve internal linking so that Google can easily access all the pages of your website.

Pro Tip: If you do not want any page to be indexed in Google, then use the “noindex” meta tag.

2. Indexing – How does Google understand web pages?

When Google crawls your page, it analyzes what topic this page is about.

In this process Google checks:

Keywords – What topic is the page about?

Meta tags – Are the title tag and meta description optimized or not?

Images & Videos – Is Alt text given or not?

Structured Data (Schema Markup) – It helps Google to understand the details of the page better.

Google stores all this information in its index, so that when a user searches, that page can be retrieved immediately.

3. Ranking – How does Google show pages in search results?

When a user queries something on Google, Google analyzes the pages stored in its index and displays the most relevant and high-quality pages in front of the user.

Important Factors of Ranking:

Relevance: How much does the content of the page match the user’s search query?

Quality: Is the content valuable and user-friendly or not?

Trustworthiness: Is the website reliable or not? (E-E-A-T – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

User Engagement: CTR (Click Through Rate), Bounce Rate and Time Spent on Page.

Page Speed ​​& Mobile Friendliness: Does the website load fast or not, and is it mobile-friendly or not?
Google checks all these factors and shows the best results on top.

Changing Trends and Future of SEO

New updates keep coming in SEO all the time. Earlier only keywords and backlinks used to matter, but now AI, user experience and content quality are becoming most important.

Latest SEO Trends & Updates:
AI and Machine Learning: Google now uses AI-based algorithms (RankBrain, BERT).
Voice Search Optimization: People now search by saying “Hey Google” instead of typing, so conversational keywords have become important.
E-E-A-T Update: Google now checks not only keywords, but also the experience and expertise of the author.
Google Algorithm Leaks: Recent API leaks have confirmed that Google also considers CTR (Click-Through Rate) as a ranking factor.

Pro Tip: Follow Google Search Liaison (X/Twitter account) and Google Blog for new updates from Google.

Conclusion: How to get success in SEO?

To get success in SEO, you will have to understand Google’s algorithm, follow new updates and apply the right SEO techniques.

Quick SEO Checklist:
Do proper keyword research.
Make the website mobile-friendly and fast.
Create quality backlinks.
Write user-friendly and valuable content.
Analyze Google Search Console and Analytics.
Stay updated with new updates from Google.

SEO is a long-term game, it requires patience and continuous learning. If you follow the best SEO practices, your website’s ranking and traffic will gradually improve.

The full form of SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It is a technique used to make a web page or content appear higher in search engines. When you search for any topic on Google or Bing, the results that appear on the first page are ranked due to SEO. Good SEO increases the visibility of the website and more people can reach it.

What comes to mind when you hear Search Engine?

If you told “Search Engine”, the first name that will come to your mind is Google!

There is nothing surprising in this because Google is the biggest and most popular search engine in the world. But, in different countries, search engines other than Google are also used. For example, Baidu is more popular in China and Yandex in Russia. What is a Search Engine? Search Engine is an online tool with the help of which we can find information on the internet. Whenever we search for something, the search engine scans (crawls), organizes (indexes) and ranks web pages and shows the best results according to our query. How does a Search Engine work? Crawling – Search engine bots (crawlers) scan websites. Indexing – The data collected by crawlers is stored in a large database.

Ranking – Algorithms decide which result is most relevant.

Displaying Results – Search Engine displays the best results on SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Types of Search Engines

1. Popular Search Engines

Google – The “King of Search Engines” which is the most used search engine in the world.

Bing – Microsoft’s search engine which provides AI-powered results.

Yahoo Search – Runs on Bing’s database and provides additional services.

2. Privacy-Focused Search Engines

DuckDuckGo – A search engine that does not track user data.

Startpage – Provides Google results without tracking.

Brave Search – Independent and private search engine which is built-in in Brave Browser.

Qwant – European search engine which does not do user profiling.

Swisscows – A family-friendly search engine which uses semantic search technology.

3. Country-Specific Search Engines
   Baidu – China’s largest and most-used search engine.
   Yandex – Russia’s popular search engine which is best in image and voice search.
4. Eco-Friendly Search Engine
   Ecosia – A search engine which plants trees and supports the environment with its ad revenue.

Conclusion
If you want fast and accurate results, then Google is the best. If you want privacy? Then DuckDuckGo or Startpage is the best. If you need to do country-specific searches, you can use Baidu or Yandex. Every search engine has its own unique purpose, you just have to choose the best one according to your needs!