Google Algorithm Changes

Spam Link Update

Update Date:

26/07/2021

This update is about better Identifying and handling spam links.

Core Update - July 2021

Update Date:

01/07/2021

A "Google confirmed" Core Update.

Spam Updates

Update Date:

23/06/2021

Spam Update. The 2nd part of the April Spam Update, focusing on issues such as: hidden text and links, cloaking, scraped content and unoriginal content

Page Experience Update

Update Date:

15/06/2021

The page experience algorithm is based on parameters such as Core Web Vitals, Mobile usability, Security issues, HTTPS and Ad Experience (Ads shouldn't distract or interrupt users).

Broad Core Update

Update Date:

02/06/2021

Core update. Occurs every few months in order to provide better and more relevant search results.

Core Update – June 2021

Update Date:

01/06/2021

The first part of a core update

Product Reviews Update

Update Date:

08/04/2021

This update is about rewarding actual, contentful reviews rather than "spam reviews". When first launched, impactet English sites.

Product Reviews Update

Update Date:

08/04/2021

Reward in-depth reviews over thin ones and over spammy reviews, at launch impacted sites in English.

Featured Snippet Recovery

Update Date:

12/03/2021

Featured Snippets made a comeback to SERP.

Featured Snippet Drop

Update Date:

19/02/2021

About 40% drop in the amount of Featured Snippets found in SERP, mostly in short queries and YLYM queries (finance and health)

Passage Indexing (US/English)

Update Date:

10/02/2021

Google started indexing whole paragraphs (English sites in US)

Unnamed Update

Update Date:

17/12/2020

Google provided no specific details

December 2020 Core Update

Update Date:

03/12/2020

Core Algorithm update

Indexing Bug, Pt. 2

Update Date:

12/10/2020

Google bug - Indexing and canonization, pt. 2

Indexing Bug, Pt. 1

Update Date:

29/09/2020

Google bug - Indexing and canonization, pt. 1

Unnamed Update

Update Date:

15/08/2020

Major changes is SERP, Google provided no specific details.

Google bug - August 11, 2020

Update Date:

11/08/2020

Google bug that was fixed in a short time.

May 2020 Core Update

Update Date:

04/05/2020

Core Algorithm update

Unnamed Update

Update Date:

07/02/2020

Major changes is SERP, Google provided no specific details.

Featured Snippet De-duping

Update Date:

22/01/2020

URLs in Featured Snippets no longer appear as traditional organic results, affecting mainly rank-tracking and organic CTR

Google Core Update - January 2020

Update Date:

13/01/2020

On January 13, 2020, Google announced a broad core update is about to roll out. Google usually launches core updates every three months. The previous update took place in Sept. 2019. Between one core update to another, we get to "enjoy" additional updates, some related to changes in search result positions and others related to the structure or design of the search result pages.

International BERT Roll-out

Update Date:

09/12/2019

BERT natural language processing algorithm rolled out in 70 languages, including Hebrew (only English before update)

BERT Update

Update Date:

22/10/2019

Algorithm update to support BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers - A natural languge processing model, designed to better understand context in search queries) Until December it worked in US English sites only.

September 2019 Core Update

Update Date:

24/09/2019

Core Algorithm update

NOFOLLOW TAG

Update Date:

10/09/2019

On September 10, 2019 Google introduced a nofollow extension in the form of 2 new features signaling link types to search engines in a more precise way.

"Maverick" Update

Update Date:

11/07/2019

Major changes is SERP, Google provided no specific details.

Site Diversity Update

Update Date:

06/06/2019

Algorithm update set to limit the number of results from the same domain appearing on SERP. Before this updaet, multiple pages from the same domain could have covered an entire result page.

Diversity in results Update

Update Date:

04/06/2019

An update designed to diversify search results and prevent the appearance of multiple pages from the same site in the search results.

June 2019 Core Update

Update Date:

03/06/2019

Core Algorithm update

Indexing Bugs

Update Date:

23/05/2019

Google bug - indexing errors

Google indexing bugs - May 2019

Update Date:

22/05/2019

Two separate Google indexing bugs that appeared one after the other.

Deindexing Bug

Update Date:

05/04/2019

Google bug - Indexing errors (Websites disappeared from search results, 16 days of lost data in Search Console).

Google indexing bugs – April 19

Update Date:

05/04/2019

A Google bug caused some pages to be removed from the index.

Core update March 2019

Update Date:

12/03/2019

This is a core Google update, officially approved by Google a day after it was released.

Change in data measurement in the canonical and non-canonical addresses in Search Console

Update Date:

06/02/2019

Google is now canonizing (uniting) data from the canonical and non-canonical URLs in order to make it easier to view the data.

Google Update January 2019

Update Date:

05/01/2019

Although not officially approved by Google, this update was noticed by tools that measure changes in SERP.

Unnamed Update

Update Date:

15/10/2018

Major Changes in search results. Probably caused by a change in Google’s ability to assess trust.

"Medic" Core Update

Update Date:

01/08/2018

Core Algorithm update

Website Rise Speed Update - July 2018

Update Date:

09/07/2018

Google announces that starting July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches.

Estimated update mid-June 2018

Update Date:

18/06/2018

Possible update that wasn't approved by Google

Video carousel update

Update Date:

14/06/2018

This update has significantly reduced video previews and replaced them with a "video carousels".

Estimated update beginning of June 2018

Update Date:

08/06/2018

.Possible update that was not officially approved by Google

Core algorithm update - April 2018

Update Date:

16/04/2018

Extensive core algorithm update that occurred in April 2018

Image label Update

Update Date:

13/03/2018

This update adds a description below each image based on the title of the page it’s on.

"No Organic Results" Update

Update Date:

07/03/2018

An experiment in which Google removed all organic results from queries returning numerical answers and presented only the answer to the question.

Yoast plugin malfunction

Update Date:

06/03/2018

Severe malfunction in Yoast causes rankings to drop.

Google Maccabees Update

Update Date:

12/12/2017

An update made to Google's core algorithm aiming to improve the relevance of search results. The update is not a single change or a new parameter in the algorithm, but a number of changes that Google made to improve their core algorithm.

Mobile results update

Update Date:

11/10/2017

Changes in Google site's ranking, only when using a mobile device.

Fred update

Update Date:

07/03/2017

Fred's update mainly affects sites with low-quality content that also contain a large amount of advertisements - meaning, sites whose sole purpose is to make profits from poor content that targeting long tail terms.

Unofficial Update - February 2017

Update Date:

01/02/2017

This update primarily affected "black hat" links, so it is commonly assumed that this update is a Penguin version update or an algorithm that joins it. Spam links and web networks are the primary casualties of this update.

Penguin4.0

Update Date:

23/09/2016

Google has announced an update of the Penguin 4.0 algorithm. This algorithm will work in real time so that the changes will appear faster.

Speculated Google Updates

Update Date:

02/09/2016

According to many reports in the SEO community and various tracking tools, it is speculated that two updates were recently rolled out by Google. Google has not confirmed the update(s), but multiple fluctuations in search traffic were noted by various tracking tools in addition to ranking changes that were reported by many SEOs.

Sponsored results in local 3-pack

Update Date:

23/06/2016

Google has started displaying sponsored results above the local result 3-pack in search results (business results). The change is visible in mobile searches only. Example of the new display.

June 2016 Algorithm update

Update Date:

21/06/2016

The June 2016 update has occurred on 3 different dates, significant fluctuations in organic results were noted on each of these dates. It is estimated that several algorithm versions were released, or a gradual rollout of the same algorithm.

Mobile Friendly Update #2

Update Date:

12/05/2016

A year following their first mobile friendly update, Google has rolled out another update which prioritizes mobile-friendly website rankings (for mobile search results). According to Google the update doesn’t impact websites that are already mobile-optimized, although it is possible that non-optimized websites may drop in rankings.

Changes in Paid Ad Results on SERPs

Update Date:

19/02/2016

As of today there are 4 paid results at the top of Google's search results, 3 paid results at the bottom, and none on the sidebar which previously featured 7 paid ads. This set of changes comes to improve Google's profits and make better use of their page space.

Google Algorithm Update

Update Date:

08/01/2016

A Google algorithm update has occurred on this date, affecting website rankings across the web. Not much is known about this update beyond Google's statement that this is a core algorithm update, and not a Penguin update. Google has confirmed this update in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Qnau9yY0Y (from minute 3:00).

Terminology Change in Search Results

Update Date:

17/12/2015

Google have released a silent terminology update, changing the term “Web” to “All” in Google search options.

4 Sponsored Results in Google Search Results

Update Date:

04/12/2015

Starting from early December 2015, some of Google’s result pages started showing 4 sponsored results (as opposed to 3 results thus far).

Removal of Local Search Filtering

Update Date:

01/12/2015

Google has removed the option to filter search results by user location due to "very little usage".

Google deprecates the AJAX crawling scheme

Update Date:

15/10/2015

In 2009 Google released a proposal for making AJAX based content crawlable. In this update, Google have announced they are now capable of indexing AJAX based content without aid, deprecating their earlier proposal and encouraging webmasters to allow Googlebot access to the page's CSS and JS.

Google Local Results Update

Update Date:

07/08/2015

Google have updated the appearance of local results on SERPs, changing the number of results shown from 7 to 3.

Possible Google Update

Update Date:

17/06/2015

Rumors of a Google update. Speculations vary between fluctuations caused by Wikipedia's transition to HTTPS, and a news website boosting update.

Wikipedia is Switching to HTTPS

Update Date:

12/06/2015

Wikipedia is switching to the HTTPS protocol. This case is not a Google algorithm update, but since Wikipedia is very dominant in Google’s search results, many SEOs have noticed shake-ups and fluctuations that day.

The Quality Update

Update Date:

05/05/2015

This update is a core engine update rather than a penalty update, and it changes the way Google assesses the quality of content found on web pages.

Mobile Friendly Update

Update Date:

21/04/2015

The update causes mobile-friendly websites to appear more frequently in search results. That is to say – making a website compatible with mobile devices becomes a parameter in determining a website's ranking.

New Doorway Page Penalty Algorithm

Update Date:

16/03/2015

This update is meant to penalize websites that contain a large amount of doorway pages. Obvious examples being websites that are attempting to rank for a large amount of local expressions.

E-commerce Update

Update Date:

04/02/2015

This update seems to have focused mostly on brand e-commerce terms. Most around misspellings of brand keywords.

Google Juno Blizzard

Update Date:

26/01/2015

Many website owners reported changes in organic traffic and its conversion rates on their websites. In most of the reported cases in this context, increases in traffic and significant decreases in conversion rates were observed.

Pigeon Goes Global

Update Date:

19/12/2014

The Pigeon update was released on July 24th for English search results in the USA. The update was also officially released on December 19th 2014 in England, Canada and Australia. The update reached other countries worldwide on the same date as well, albeit unofficially.

Penguin 3.4

Update Date:

06/12/2014

Regarding this update specifically, many have reported that previously observed changes made by the Penguin 3.3 update have reverted back to the earlier ranking state of Penguin 3.2.

Penguin 3.3

Update Date:

05/12/2014

Google has confirmed that this is a part of the ongoing Penguin 3.0 release, many website owners reported previously observed changes reverting back to pre-Penguin 3.0 rankings.

Penguin 3.2

Update Date:

02/12/2014

This update is a Penguin 3.0 follow-up that was released as a result of the many issues caused by Penguin 3.0 and multiple complaints made by website owners.

Penguin 3.1

Update Date:

27/11/2014

Google have confirmed this update is a part of the Penguin 3.0 rollout, many fluctuations, reversals and changes

penguin 3.0

Update Date:

17/10/2014

The update checks the relevant of links, intended to avoid spam

Panda 4.1

Update Date:

25/09/2014

A new filter designed to penalize “thin” or poor content from ranking high. Google said that depending on location, about 3% - 5% of search queries will be affected by this update.

Pigeon Update

Update Date:

24/07/2014

The Pigeon update is not a website-penalizing update websites like the Panda or Penguin updates, but a change in the way Google’s search engine works. This update was released on July 24th for English language search results in the USA.

Google Spam Algorithm Version 3.0

Update Date:

12/06/2014

Google Spam Algorithm Version 3.0 is designed to clean and take care of "spammy" queries such as [viagra[, [casinos], [payday loans] etc.

Panda 4.0

Update Date:

24/05/2014

Google announced an algorithm that affects sites using duplicate content or thinned with many advertisements (7.5% impact for searches in English)

Google Spam Algorithm 2.0

Update Date:

21/05/2014

This update is a Google Spam Algorithm update, and its purpose is to tackle spam websites and queries that appear on search result pages. Google refer to this algorithm as the Google Spam Algorithm 2.0, but it also has also been nicknamed the ‘Payday Loan Algorithm’ for the noticeable use of the phrase "Payday Loan" in the description for the update. According to Google's estimation the update will impact about 0.2% of queries in English.

Unofficial Update

Update Date:

18/04/2014

A significant decrease in traffic for mainly MP3 sites and lyrics sites.

Soft panda

Update Date:

24/03/2014

Rumors and reports about "soft" Panda - a drastic drop of the movement.

Another Page Layout Algorithm Update

Update Date:

06/02/2014

The algorithm emphasizes the layout of the page and its content. About 1% globally search results changes .

Authorship Update

Update Date:

19/12/2013

In this update, titled the “authorship update”, rich snippet results were reduced by 15%.

Unofficial Update

Update Date:

17/12/2013

Reports about major changes in search results since penguin 2.0 . Google denies.

Unofficial Update

Update Date:

14/11/2013

Changes in rankings for the top domains

Penguin 2.1

Update Date:

04/10/2013

Though Google claims update affected ~1% of searches to a noticeable other tests show a larger impact percent.

Sep. 4th 2013 update

Update Date:

04/09/2013

According to several webmasters they have seen traffic drops at this date. Google has not announced any official update.

Hummingbird Update

Update Date:

20/08/2013

The Hummingbird update was released by Google on August 2013 and introduced by their representatives as the first significant update since Caffeine at 2010, and the biggest update of its kind since 2001. According to Google Hummingbird affected 90% of searches world-wide.

Panda #26

Update Date:

18/07/2013

Official Google message: In the last few days we’ve been pushing out a new Panda update that incorporates new signals so it can be more finely targeted.

Continuous update

Update Date:

26/06/2013

Google Spam Algorithm / Payday Loan Algorithm

Update Date:

11/06/2013

Google’s "Payday Loan Algorithm" is an update that aims to tackle spammy queries and spam websites that appear in search results. According to Google's initial statement, the update mainly checks for problematic link schemes, so if you were affected by this update you might want to check your website's link profile.

Unofficial Update

Update Date:

05/06/2013

Changes in traffic and search results positions

Penguin 2.0

Update Date:

22/05/2013

Update 2.0 for Google’s Penguin algorithm. This update is both an algorithm update (the new algorithm works differently than Penguin 1.0) and a data refresh which addresses the current status of sites on the web. According to Google, 2.3% of English (US) queries were affected to a degree that is noticeable by standard search engine users.

Phantom Update

Update Date:

08/05/2013

This update has received very vague credentials by Google. ("No, this is not the Penguin update" was the most official reference given to the update - https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/332914600095907840) Many site owners have reported significant falls in ranking.

Panda #25 - continues

Update Date:

15/03/2013

future Panda updates will be rolling over time, no more confirmations from google regarding Panda changes or updates

Panda #24

Update Date:

22/01/2013

A data refresh for the Panda algorithm. This refresh affected 1.2% of English queries.

Untitled Update

Update Date:

17/01/2013

Fluctuations in Google search results indicate the feasibility of refreshes / update from Google.

Panda #23

Update Date:

21/12/2012

This is a data refresh for the Panda update. The refresh affected 1.3% of queries in English. This update is significant in comparison to its predecessor which affected only 0.8% of queries.

Knowledge Graph Expansion

Update Date:

04/12/2012

Google added knowledge graph for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and Italian.

Panda #22

Update Date:

30/11/2012

Data refresh #22 for the Panda update. The update affected 0.8% of queries in English.

Panda #21

Update Date:

05/11/2012

Data refresh #21 for the Panda update. This refresh affected 1.1% of queries in English and 0.4% of queries worldwide.

Page Layout Algorithm Update

Update Date:

09/10/2012

Data refresh for 'Page Layout Algorithm'. Affected on 0.7% of queries in English.

Penguin #3

Update Date:

05/10/2012

A small penguin data update affecting 0.3% of queries.

Panda #20

Update Date:

27/09/2012

Google confirmed that a Panda update was released on September 27th 2012, affecting 2.4% of English queries, which is an exceptional percentage for a Panda update impact. This update is not just a data refresh, but an actual algorithm update

Exact Match Domain (EMD) Update

Update Date:

27/09/2012

Google announced a change in the way it was handling exact match domains (EMDs). Leading to a large scale reduction in the presence of EMDs in the MozCast data set by over 10%. Official word is that this change impacted 0.6% of queries (by volume).

Panda 3.9.2

Update Date:

18/09/2012

A Panda refresh, affecting less than 0.7% of queries.

Panda 3.9.1

Update Date:

20/08/2012

A Panda refresh, affecting less than 1% of queries.

Search results

Update Date:

14/08/2012

Google conducted significant changes to the first 10 results displayed; display is now reduced to 7 results for many queries. A current research indicated that the change was spread throughout a few days but effected on about 18% of keywords being tracked.

86-Pack

Update Date:

10/08/2012

Major updates included Panda data and algorithm refreshes, an improved rank-ordering function (?), a ranking boost for "trusted sources", and changes to site clustering.רים.

The Pirate Update / DMCA Penalty

Update Date:

10/08/2012

The Pirate Update (or the DMCA Penalty update), aims to penalize websites that have repeatedly received removal requests for copyright infringing content.

Panda 3.2

Update Date:

24/07/2012

About 1% of queries affected

Link Warnings

Update Date:

19/07/2012

Google sent out a large number of unnatural link warnings via Google Webmaster Tools. They later announced that these new warnings may not actually represent a serious problem.

Panda 3.8

Update Date:

25/06/2012

Google rolled out another Panda data refresh, but this appeared to be data only (no algorithm changes) and had a much smaller impact than Panda 3.7.

Panda 3.7

Update Date:

08/06/2012

Google released another Panda data update, claiming that less than 1% of queries were affected. Ranking fluctuation data suggested that the impact was substantially higher than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6.)

May 39-Pack

Update Date:

07/06/2012

Google released their monthly Search Highlights, with 39 updates in May. Major changes included better link-scheme detection, changes to title/snippet rewriting, and updates to Google News.

Penguin 1.1

Update Date:

25/05/2012

Google rolled out its first targeted data update after the "Penguin" algorithm update. This confirmed that Penguin data was being processed outside of the main search index.

Knowledge Graph

Update Date:

16/05/2012

In a major step toward semantic search, Google started rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a SERP-integrated display providing supplemental object about certain people, places, and things. "Knowledge panels" would be expected to appear on more and more Search results.

52 Pack, updates and penguin changes

Update Date:

05/05/2012

Google published details of 52 updates that were tied to the "Penguin" update. Other highlights included a 15% larger "base" index, improved pagination handling, and a number of updates to sitelinks.

Panda 3.6

Update Date:

27/04/2012

Panda data update. The implications of this update were unclear, and it seemed that the impact was relatively small.

Penguin Update

Update Date:

24/04/2012

The Penguin update is one of Google’s most well-known updates and one of the company’s most important algorithm updates. The update was launched on April 24th 2012 with the aim of giving a ranking advantage to quality websites, and lowering the rankings of spam generating websites that employ invalid SEO methods. The algorithm impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.

Panda 3.5

Update Date:

19/04/2012

Google rolled out a Panda data update that appears to have been a fairly routine update with minimal impact.

Parked Domain Bug

Update Date:

16/04/2012

After a number of webmasters reported ranking shuffles, Google confirmed that a data error had caused some domains to be mistakenly treated as parked domains (and thereby devalued). This was not an intentional algorithm change.

March 50-Pack

Update Date:

03/04/2012

Google posted another batch of update highlights, covering 50 changes, including confirmation of Panda 3.4, changes to anchor-text "scoring", updates to image search, and changes to how queries with local intent are interpreted.

Panda 3.4

Update Date:

23/03/2012

Another Panda update, affecting 1.6% of queries

February 40-Pack

Update Date:

27/02/2012

Google published a second set of "search quality highlights", claiming more than 40 changes. Notable changes included multiple image-search updates, multiple freshness updates (including phasing out 2 old bits of the algorithm), and a Panda update.

Panda 3.3

Update Date:

27/02/2012

Google posted another post-"flux" Panda update, which appeared to be relatively minor. This came just 3 days after the 1-year anniversary of Panda, an unprecedented lifespan for a named update.

February 17-Pack

Update Date:

03/02/2012

Google released additional "search quality highlights" (17 in all). Many related to speed, freshness, and spell-checking, but one major announcement was tighter integration of Panda into the main search index.

The “Page Layout” Algorithm

Update Date:

19/01/2012

The “Page Layout Algorithm”, also known as the “Above the Fold Update” and the “Top Heavy Update”, addresses the issue of pages with an overabundance of ads above the “fold”.

Panda 3.2

Update Date:

18/01/2012

Google confirmed a Panda data update, although suggested that the algorithm hadn't changed.

google+

Update Date:

10/01/2012

Google announced a radical shift in personalization - aggressively pushing Google+ social data and user profiles into SERPs, but also adding a prominent toggle button to shut off personalization.

January 30-Pack

Update Date:

05/01/2012

Google announced 30 changes; including image search landing-page quality detection, more relevant site-links, more rich snippets, and related-query improvements.