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A significant infrastructure improvement known as the “Google Big Daddy Update” that started rolling out in December 2005 had a significant impact on the general calibre of SERPs. Periodically, algorithm updates have been introduced as Google evolved and grew over time. Despite numerous SEO experts finding proof for several updates, Google has yet to confirm them.
Big Daddy, a Google update, was one that was expected. Google publicly discussed it and made an announcement about it in December 2005.
Since the Big Daddy update involved updating the infrastructure, it was implemented gradually. The quality of the search engine results pages (SERPs) at the time was significantly impacted by it. The modification wasn’t finished until March of 2006.
Google Big daddy Update: What was it?
Marketers and website owners were unsurprised by the Google Big Daddy update. This was one of the modifications that Google made public. During the rollout process, Google contacted a test group of SEO specialists to provide feedback on the algorithm adjustment.
Unlike prior updates that had an instant influence on SERPs, the consequences of Big Daddy were seen gradually over time. Despite the fact that the update began in December, the algorithm did not change completely until March of the following year.
Algorithm changes do not always make sense from the standpoint of a website manager. To us, it may appear that Google is occasionally going rogue with all of its updates. However, they are actually highly deliberate about how they implement algorithm updates.
In the instance of the Google Big Daddy update, they chose to make changes gradually over time so that they could receive feedback from testers on how well their update was doing. Google, in particular, wanted to ensure that its new data centre strategy was up to the challenge before embarking on a large-scale rollout.
This update was unique in that SEO specialists could test it and provide input to Google before it was completely implemented. They were checking the quality of the SERPs, or search engine results pages, produced by the new update.
History of Big Daddy Update
Matt Cutts, who was in charge of Google’s webspam team at the time, has been formally announcing the implementation of new infrastructure since December 2005. Google tested it on two servers before running the entire infrastructure, and the SEO communities were informed of their IP addresses.
While SEO experts were eager to test how their websites would perform on the new data centres, the circumstance also provided Google with a feedback loop where they could get data from numerous testers who were prepared to give their opinions on the improvements.
An hour-long Q&A session was held in one of the morning sessions at Pubcon 2005. Following this session, Cutts and his supporters—jokingly referred to as “Cuttlets”—stayed in the Pubcon lunchroom and proceeded to ask questions, skipping the subsequent session in the process.
Cutts made the following announcement about the launch of the two new data centres, which would run the new infrastructure and use the IP addresses 66.249.93.104 and 64.233.179.104.
Cutts also asked the gathering for recommendations on what to call these new data centres during this informal debate in the dining area. Many algorithm updates in the past were given names based on the persons who reported them first.
Jeff M. was the person. recommended calling him “Big Daddy,” a moniker his kids had given him. Cutts decided to give his latest update the name “Big Daddy” since he loved the name.
The Google Big Daddy update began to spread to other data centres along with the ongoing SEO community input. After then, all outdated data centres were shut down on March 29, 2006.
Big Daddy Update Caused Few Complaints When It Rolled Out
With the rollout of Google’s Big Daddy feedback form, SEO professionals provided their early feedback on the quality of the SERPs. This feedback form and the URL removal tool were forerunners of Google Webmaster Tools, which evolved into Google Search Console.
Based on this feedback form, there were few complaints and SEOs were generally delighted.
There were even a few respected SEO specialists, particularly Todd Friesen and Greg Boser, who stated (on WebmasterRadio.fm in January 2006) that they loved the results when Big Daddy was first released.
They stated in the interview that the only complaints were primarily due to other issues that were unrelated to Big Daddy and were incorrectly classified as part of the Big Daddy update.
Having said that, it’s unusual for a Google update to go unnoticed. See also: Is Google choked on online spam? retrieved from the Register.
Purpose of Google Big Daddy Update
Aside from the unclear notice that simply labelled the Big Daddy update as an infrastructure update, Google did not provide much more information on the release.
According to Cutts, this infrastructure helps to improve the quality of search results. That statement is also ambiguous. However, at the Big Daddy launch, Cutts solicited comments on the following items:
- URL Canonicalization
- Inurl: Search Operator
- 302 and 301 Redirects
Cutts has only confirmed that the updates were caused by the Big Daddy update in a few situations out of all the comments he has received on the Big Daddy update. Connections that were untrustworthy for both inbound and outbound links, reasons of excessive reciprocal linking, spammy neighbourhood links, and algorithmic detection of bought links are examples of these.
The Google Big Daddy update was most likely about more than just low-quality connections, but these are the only factors on which Cutts or anyone from Google has provided feedback. The bulk of the SEO community observed no discernible difference, and if there was any online debate about any negative effect, it was almost always unrelated to Big Daddy.
Google Big Daddy Update Affected Websites
Of course, not everybody liked the update in the Google algorithm. Some SEO experts believed that there had been no improvement in the quality of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) they were seeing. Google representatives argued that these criticisms were insignificant and that Big Daddy was generally well-received.
Google announced the implementation of the additional index to search results once Google Big Daddy Update was fully implemented.
Theoretically, the supplemental index should help website users by making it simpler for them to seek any special information that may not be included in the main index of your website.
The truth is that the majority of users never made it to the page where they could view the additional index. This implied that you might not receive as many views as you would want on pages that you really wanted visitors to see if they were included in this index.
Some website administrators found this to be a serious issue. Finding out WHY a particular page was winding up in the supplemental index was necessary to fix the problem.
Duplicate content and pages that the algorithm regarded to be less significant, such as category pages, appeared to frequently end up in supplemental indexes.
Impact of Big Daddy Update on SEO
There have been other Google algorithm modifications since Big Daddy. The problematic additional index, however, was dropped long ago. Big Daddy did teach later algorithms the value of creating a clear framework for your website.
Big Daddy and other early algorithm adjustments gave rise to many current concerns for SEO practitioners. These include things like interlinking, meta descriptions, and website navigation.
Conclusion
Several SEO blogs will discuss the update during any Google update, and some will simply state statements as truths. Some argued at the time that the Big Daddy update was all about low-quality links. Others thought it was to improve the performance of canonical tags and 302/301 redirection. There is still no substantial evidence that the Big Daddy update was solely about these.
Google’s only announcements were about improving the quality of search results and utilising it as an infrastructure change.
Read More: Google Algorithm Update History
