This is not a complete recap but it is meant to focus on some of the main points. Their were a few notable things that happened in 2012.
Panda became more aggressive. Their have been several updates to panda. It is meant to hinder scraper sites from having priority placement in the search results. If someone is stealing content, they do not deserve to outrank the person they stole it from. Google began penalizing sites for stealing content. Other sites that received a panda penalty were affiliate sites with thin content.
Penguin was rolled out. Google originally announced that Penguin would only affect a small percentage of search results but it affected a large percentage of spammers. Many shady linking practices were hit by Penguin. It was designed to catch people abusing anchor text in their links. Many link networks were brought down because of them.
Social Signals became a major factor. Having a long list of Social Sites is almost a must. The greatest thing that I have learned from engaging other people in my social networks (primarily G+) is that people who are in your same niche will share your content with their followers if you have good content. Social shares is a major signal to Google. Google also measures how active and engaged your are on your social accounts.
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