Everflux.

Everflux is a term used to describe the constantly changing data in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Google is continuously crawling the Internet, indexing the data on their servers and then presenting it in accordance to their ranking criteria. This process is perpetual – hence, ‘ever-fluctuating’. Everflux is essentially observed in near real-time, although Google are constantly refining their techniques to make the updates even faster and more sophisticated.

In addition to the major, sweeping updates to Google’s ranking algorithm – such as the infamous Panda and Penguin updates or the more recent mobile-first index and Rankbrain – Everflux makes sure that all ranking factors are measured as close to real-time as possible. The immediacy of Everflux ensures that the most relevant and valuable information is presented to the user. This is especially beneficial to news websites who need to stay up-to-date with current events and larger websites with higher rates of page traffic, as they are likely to change their content regularly.

How is it different to Google Dance?

Google Dance preceded Everflux and was one of Google’s early attempts to regularly refresh its index and rankings. Unlike the continuous synchronisation of Everflux, Google Dance took much longer and lead to fluctuating results over a 3 to 5 day period.

As search engine users demand a fast and reliable response to their inquiries, updates posed a serious problem to Google. Like all other search engines, Google couldn’t afford to shut down or go offline while they updated their database so they had to do it incrementally. Pre-2013 and continuous Panda updates, when it didn’t have the technological capacity to constantly crawl and index websites, Google would carry out a major index update about once a month. This resulted in leaping and bounding fluctuations in search result rankings – like a dance (we know, it’s a bit of a stretch, which is always important before a dance).

The sporadic quality of the Google Dance meant that websites with shoddy, low-value content could exist near the top of search results for extended periods of time. This was bad for the search engine user and allowed the use of Black Hat SEO techniques to manipulate content before Google bots had a chance to properly measure its quality and rank it accordingly.

Why is Everflux good for SEO?

The continuous and constantly refining nature of Everflux ensures that the SERPs are always presenting the most relevant and valuable information possible. This means that websites are increasingly required to provide the best quality information for their target audience and make their content as accessible as possible.

Websites with topical content may find themselves at the top of the rankings initially but will quickly plummet if that content is not optimised, has no quality-relevant links or the site has poor usability. We also have to take into account the concept of time-decay in that topical content loses relevance far quicker than more evergreen content. The phenomenon of Everflux emphasises the importance of perfecting SEO techniques to consistently dominate the top positions of results pages and then reap the rewards.

Ultimately, Everflux presents a more up to date bank of information. This allows us as SEOs to get our content indexed and ranking quickly, respond to market changes and provide our users with the very best information or solutions for their search queries.

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