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    What Happened To The Monthly Google Dance?

    Back in the ‘old days’ of Google and the SEO industry, “Google Dance” was a term used often in the industry. Back then, a “Google Dance” referred to the about monthly updates Google pushed out to their index. Every month or so, SEOs and Webmasters waited for the “Google Dance” to see if their rankings […]

    Back in the ‘old days’ of Google and the SEO industry, “Google Dance” was a term used often in the industry. Back then, a “Google Dance” referred to the about monthly updates Google pushed out to their index. Every month or so, SEOs and Webmasters waited for the “Google Dance” to see if their rankings would increase or decrease – yes, this included PageRank updates. Nowadays, you rarely hear about people talking about a Google Dance because Google releases updates, mostly minor, throughout the day. These include index updates every minute and algorithm updates several times per month, over once a day.

    Matt Cutts from Google has created a video that explains why Google doesn’t issue typical Yahoo Weather reports, to notify SEOs of an upcoming update.

    I should add that the “Google Dance” also refers to the annual party Google holds at the Googleplex for SEOs. This year, Google did not have the Google Dance – so it seems like they have done away with both, the physical dance and the algorithmic dance.


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    About the Author

    Barry Schwartz
    Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

    In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

    Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.