Search Engine Land’s Top News Stories Of 2013: Hummingbirds, Penguins, Pandas & More

As we get ready to close the books on 2013, the editorial team that brings you daily news and features on Search Engine Land and MarTech is going to look back at the most popular content we published during these past 12 months. Over the next week couple weeks, we’ll reveal our most popular columns […]

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As we get ready to close the books on 2013, the editorial team that brings you daily news and features on Search Engine Land and MarTech is going to look back at the most popular content we published during these past 12 months.

Over the next week couple weeks, we’ll reveal our most popular columns (overall, and broken down by topic) and our most shared stories on the main social networks.

But we’ll begin today with a look back at the most popular news items of 2013.

Search Engine Land’s Most Popular News Stories Of 2013

This list includes news stories published through December 18th.

  1. FAQ: All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm (September 26, by Danny Sullivan)
  2. Play The Frank Zamboni Google Doodle (January 16, by Barry Schwartz)
  3. Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome (May 22, by Danny Sullivan)
  4. Google’s April Fools’ Day 2013 Joke-A-Thon: YouTube Shutdown, Google Nose & More (March 31, by Matt McGee)
  5. Penguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now Live (October 4, by Danny Sullivan)
  6. Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted (January 22, by Barry Schwartz)
  7. Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live (May 22, by Barry Schwartz)
  8. Google’s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google’s New Algorithm (September 30, by Amy Gesenhues)
  9. Google’s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates (March 11, by Barry Schwartz)
  10. Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks (September 23, by Danny Sullivan)

All ten stories are Google-related, a testament to the fact that Google dominates the attention of the search marketing industry with its 65-70 percent US market share (and even higher market share in other countries).

If you’re new to Search Engine Land, or if you missed the commotion over Google’s animal-based updates this year, see our article library to get caught up:

The list above is limited to news that we published in 2013. As is the case with many websites that have been online as long as Search Engine Land, some of our “evergreen” content was also extremely popular during the year. Features like our What Is SEO? guide and The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors were also among the most-viewed content this year, even though they predate this calendar year.

We’ve also compiled a similar list on our sister site, Marketing Land: Marketing Land’s Top News Stories Of 2013: New Devices, Hashtag Bowl, Google Reader & More.

On behalf of the Search Engine Land editorial team, thanks for reading us during 2013. Happy holidays to you and best wishes for 2014!


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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