An Up-to-Date History of Google Algorithm Updates

Bruce Clay — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 18:00:42 +0000

Algorithm update: A change in the search engine’s ranking formulas that may or may not cause noticeable seismic shifts in which webpages appear at the top of search results, but which is meant to improve the quality of results overall.

An SEO Perspective on Algo Fluctuations

The only thing that’s constant in search engine optimization is change. In one year (2020), for example, Google reported running 600,000+ experiments that resulted in more than 4,500 improvements to Search. That’s a lot of volatility, folks.

Here is our running list of the notable confirmed and major unconfirmed algorithm updates of all time. Below the list, we also explain how to watch for algorithm updates and what to do if you think your site has been impacted.

Main TOC:

Algorithm updates by year
Panda updates in detail
Penguin updates in detail
How to watch for algorithm changes
What to do after an update
Why you don’t need to beat the algorithm
FAQ: What steps should I take if my site’s ranking is impacted after an update?

The following are the major updates, in our view, of all time — the ones that have shaped the face of search and SEO. These links will take you to the most important Google updates in our opinion:

Page Experience Update – June to September 2021
BERT – October 2019
June 2019 Core Update & Site Diversity Update
March 2019 Core Update
Medic – August 2018
Fred – March 2017
Possum – September 2016
RankBrain – October 2015
Mobile-Friendly Update – April 2015
Pigeon – July 2014
Hummingbird – August 2013
Penguin – April 2012
Panda – February 2011

If you want to jump to a particular year, be my guest:
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | Pre-2009

Google Algorithm Updates by Year

2023 ALGORITHM UPDATES

November 2023 – Core Update

In a rare development, Google announced its second major core update in as many months on November 2. The rollout is still ongoing and expected to be completed within the next few weeks.

October 2023 – Core Update

Google completed the third core update of the year on October 19.

October 2023 – Spam Update

The spam update began October 4 and ended October 19. This update addressed the increase in spam being reported by users when searching in their native languages.

September 2023 – Helpful Content System Update

The helpful content system update finished rollout on September 28. Google updated its guidance on AI-generated content, shifting its attitude to be consistent with generating helpful content. Google also revised guidelines on hosting third-party content. It now recommends blocking this content from being indexed if it is unrelated to the website’s main purpose. Learn more about the helpful content system here.

August 2023 – Core Update

The second core update of 2023 began on August 22 and completed September 7. See how it compared to previous updates.

May 2023 – Topic Authority System

Google announced its topic authority system as a way to “better surface relevant, expert, and knowledgeable content” in news queries. This system is not new — Google has been using it for several years, but they are discussing it now to bring more transparency into how ranking works.

April 2023 – Reviews Update

Google updated the name of this update from “product reviews” to just “reviews.” It now evaluates reviews of services, businesses, media — any topic that is reviewable. Google revised the language in its guidance documentation to apply to reviews of all kinds. This update was completed April 25. Learn more here.

March 2023 – Core Update

Google rolled out this update on March 15. It was the first of 2023 and finished rolling out March 28. This update caused more volatility than previous ones.

February 2023 – Product Reviews Update

Google’s product reviews update promotes review content that is of higher quality than the typical standard review information found online. The goal of this update is to “provide users with content that provides insightful analysis and original research, content written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well,” according to Google. This update added several new languages including English, Spanish, German, French and Italian among others. Google completed the rollout on March 7.

2022 ALGORITHM UPDATES

December 2022 – Link Spam Update

Hot off the heels of the helpful content system update, Google launched a link spam update on December 14. Google is targeting spammy links with SpamBrain, their AI-based spam-prevention system. Learn more about this update here.

December 2022 – Helpful Content System Update

This is the first update to Google’s helpful content system since its launch in August 2022. It began rolling out December 6, adding new signals and updating it worldwide to include all languages.

October 2022 – Spam Update

On October 19, Google quietly rolled out a spam update to improve detection of search spam. The update finished on October 21. Read more about Google’s spam update here.

September 2022 – Product Reviews Update

Google completed its second product reviews update of 2022 on September 26. Like the first update in July, this update rewards review-based content that is helpful and informative to shoppers.

September 2022 – Core Update

Google began rolling out its second core update of the year on September 12. It was completed two weeks later on September 26. This update appeared to have less of an impact than previous core updates.

August 2022 – Helpful Content Update

Google announced the helpful content update on August 18. This new signal rewards content that Google believes is helpful and informative, rather than content that is purely meant to rank well in search engines. The update rolled out August 25 and was completed on September 9.

Check out our video What to know about the Helpful Content Update to get Bruce’s take on the new signal.

June 2022 – Product Reviews Update

The Product Reviews Update was announced on July 27. While it was expected to take several weeks to roll out, it only took six days, fully rolling out on August 2. This update promotes quality review content to help shoppers learn more about products before purchasing. See Google’s help document on how to write high quality product reviews.

May 2022 – Core Update

This algo update acknowledged by Google caused some noticeable ranking fluctuations, more than some other recent core updates. It rolled out starting May 25 and finished June 9, 2022.

February 2022 – Page Experience Update for Desktop

Core Web Vitals and the page experience ranking factor applied to desktop as well as mobile as of this update, which finished rolling out on March 3, 2022.

2021 ALGORITHM UPDATES

June 2021 – Page Experience Update

Rolled out between mid-June and early September 2021, this update had less impact on rankings than Google’s core updates. Yet despite the fact that the update was somewhat downplayed in the SEO community, Google’s John Mueller confirmed it was more than simply a “tie-breaker” when ranking webpages. He also stated that when webmasters downplay the update, it may also mean that they downplay the impact that the ranking factors have on users.

What it did was create a new page experience ranking factor combining at least six signals related to how a webpage performs for mobile users. (Note that though it initially applied to mobile ranking only, Google rolled out the page experience update for desktop as well in February 2022.)

Core Web Vitals are three new performance metrics introduced with this update. Websites that meet certain performance thresholds can gain some competitive advantage and also improve their site’s user experience.

While improving page experience factors is often technical back-end work, top sites continue to improve their scores. So especially if you’re in a competitive industry, I highly recommend you check your site and get started.

For more details, see our comprehensive e-book Google’s Page Experience Update: A Complete Guide and these resources:

What’s the Page Experience Update?
Core Web Vitals Overview
What is LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
What is FID (First Input Delay)
What is CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
Webinar (on demand and in depth): Three Expert Tips to Improve Core Web Vitals

June 2021 – Core Update

In June 2021, Google released a core update and announced another one would be coming the following month in July.

Google told Search Engine Land that the reason the rollout was broken into two phases was that not all of the planned improvements for the June 2021 update were ready. So Google decided to release the parts that were ready and push out the rest the following month.

Many in the industry felt that this was a big update, according to a roundup of data published at Search Engine Land. Subsequently, many felt like the link spam update in July–August 2021 did not have as big of an impact, which is why we aren’t listing it separately here.

Was the June core update related to “your money or your life” webpages? Some thought so.

Google released a blog post that coincided with the June core update, stating that: “core updates are designed to increase the overall relevancy of our search results. In terms of traffic, we send, it’s largely a net exchange. Some content might do less well, but other content gains.”

February 2021 – Passage Ranking

On February 11, Google announced it had launched passage ranking for U.S. queries in English.

Passage ranking helps Google Search better choose and rank the most relevant webpages with passages (like blocks of text) that answer very specific queries.

Whereas before, the search engine may have ranked articles that give general information on the query; now, Google can find and rank articles that answer the query the best, even if it’s only within a block of text on the webpage.

Google said this about passage ranking:

Very specific searches can be the hardest to get right, since sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to better understand the relevancy of specific passages. By understanding passages in addition to the relevancy of the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for.

Google stated that when it is fully rolled out globally, it will impact 7% of search queries.

2020 ALGORITHM UPDATES

December 2020 – Core Update

In early December 2020, Google released a new broad core update. Many industry commentators stated it was a big core update — one of the largest yet — with many sites seeing extreme traffic gains and losses.

As with previous broad core updates, there was no specific ranking factor targeted; rather, broad core updates are an update to how sites are evaluated.

While many webmasters were anticipating this update as a way to recover from losses from the May 2020 update, many were also concerned about the timing of this update, as it occurred during the holiday period.

You can check out an analysis of this core update at Search Engine Land: “Google’s December 2020 core update was big, even bigger than May 2020, say data providers.”

November 2020 – Subtopics Ranking

Some websites may have experienced ranking changes on or around mid-November, and the subtopics ranking change may have been the reason.

Google did not announce this algorithm update (but did discuss it back in October). Google’s Danny Sullivan later confirmed in 2021 that the ranking change went live in November 2020.

It’s worth noting that subtopics ranking is a new feature of the algorithm, as opposed to an update of existing processes.

Google discussed subtopics ranking in October 2020, saying the following:

We’ve applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which helps deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad. As an example, if you search for “home exercise equipment,” we can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content for you on the search results page. We’ll start rolling this out by the end of this year.

In other words, the subtopics ranking feature is designed to help Google understand how subtopics relate to a query.

As another example, if someone were to search for “SEO,” Google can now understand relevant subtopics such as agencies, conferences, tools, and Google algorithm updates. With this information, it can then show wider-ranging content in the search engine results pages.

For more, see the Search Engine Land article: “Google launched subtopics ranking in mid-November.”

May 2020 Core Update

Google announced a broad core update via Twitter. This update took approximately two weeks to fully roll out.

Many felt that the May update was significant, even for a core update, with many sites seeing significant losses or gains in traffic. Many algorithm-tracking tools registered extreme volatility.

A core update, according to Google, is a broad algorithm update that does not target specific types of queries or pages. Instead, the update is about improving how the search engine assesses content overall to make results more relevant. We are told to compare a core update to refreshing a list of top 100 movies that you made a few years back. Naturally, new items would appear in your list today, and other titles on your list would shift up or down.

Consequently, Google says that “pages that drop after a core update don’t have anything wrong to fix.” And some pages that were “previously under-rewarded” will rank higher.

Moz gives an analysis of the winners and losers of this core update here.

January 2020 – Featured Snippets Update

Google confirmed that results shown in featured snippets would no longer be repeated on the first page of search results. Previously, a featured snippet could be found in “Position 0” as well as one of the top organic listings on the page.

2019 ALGORITHM UPDATES

October 2019 – BERT

Google announced BERT — its deep learning algorithm also known internally at Google as DeepRank — on October 25, 2019. BERT impacts conversational search queries by helping Google to better understand context, including how words like “for” and “to” change the meaning of a search. Google later confirmed there was nothing specific to optimize for, and that BERT affects nearly every search performed.

September 2019 Core Update

Google announced this broad core algorithm update ahead of time. The industry weighed in after it rolled out, and many hypothesized it targeted link spam.

June 2019 Core Update & Site Diversity Update

Google pre-announced this update, which seemed to focus on correcting the way the algorithm evaluated links. It put more weight on the domain authority and trustworthiness of a site’s incoming links.

In my opinion, the “trustworthiness” component of the E-A-T factors rose in importance. And it overflowed SEO to include a fix for detecting sentiment. Note that this firmly places the issue with a ranking loss on marketing in general … No wonder Google has said that there is nothing sites can do specifically to “fix” their rankings after a core update runs. Mess with user sentiment, link sentiment, and quality, and prepare to die.

The search engine simultaneously released a separate site diversity update. The stated goal was to make search results more diverse. For most queries, users no longer see a domain appear more than twice in the top-ranked results, making it harder for a site to “saturate” a topic organically.

Hazards: Sites with too low a percentage of backlinks from trusted websites may have dropped. Those that used to have many pages ranking for a single query also lost some SERP real estate.

Winners: Pages may have risen that were previously under-rewarded. (Aren’t we all?)

March 2019 Core Update

Google confirmed this update, which seemed to fine-tune broad core algorithm changes of the past. Data showed the majority of the websites that were impacted were also impacted by the March 2018 core update and the August 2018 “Medic” update. To prevent naming confusion, Google tweeted the update’s name the same day it was released.

However, the losers weren’t impacted as much as the winners. Research found that sites whose search traffic increased experienced higher rankings site-wide, with no increase in the number of keywords ranked.

On the flip side, the update hurt many sites that provide a poor user experience (due to excessive pop-ups, poor navigation, over-optimization, and so forth).

And, of course, trust was a significant signal. Sites dealing with YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics took ranking hits if they were participating in untrusted activities.

Hazards: Google’s March 2019 Core Update behaved like an evolution of previous algorithms, negatively affecting sites that were over-optimized.

Winners: Reputable sites ranking for queries related to particularly sensitive topics, like those about health questions, benefited. According to SearchMetrics, “websites with a strong brand profile and a broad topical focus” also advanced. See, trust matters.

2018 ALGORITHM UPDATES

September 2018 – Small Update

Google confirmed there was a small update made, and reiterated that it wasn’t anything major.

August 2018 Core Update – Medic

Google announced the release of this broad core algorithm update, coined by the industry as “Medic.” Google’s advice? Be more relevant for searches — and not just page by page, but as a whole site. More advice stated that small tweaks to content may not suffice and that holistic changes to the site may be required.

I believe the Medic update was a significant step focused on trust (part of Google’s “E-A-T” quality factors). In my opinion, trusted sites that were interlinked with untrusted sites were penalized.

Learn more:

SEO siloing for website and content relevance through linking
Complete Guide to E-A-T Fundamentals
English Google Webmaster Central Office-Hours Hangout (starting at 10:10)
English/తెలుగు Webmaster Central Office-Hours Hangout (starting at 32:02)

July 2018 – Speed Update

Fast performance creates a better user experience for searchers clicking on results. After alerting website owners months in advance, Google announced its Speed Update on July 9, 2018. Previously, page load speed factored into only desktop search results. Since this update, slow performance on mobile devices can hurt a site’s optimization.

April 2018 – Broad Core Update

Google confirmed this broad core update. As is the case with all broad core updates, Google indicates that there’s nothing specific to do. However, as indicated in a later confirmation of the March core update (below), it may have been around relevance.

March 2018 – Broad Core Update

Google confirmed this broad core update and reminded webmasters to continue building great content. Later, Google explained that most of its updates are around relevance, not how good or bad a site is.

2017 ALGORITHM UPDATES

December 2017 – Several Updates

Google reacted to the SEO community that dubbed fluctuations in December as “Maccabees.” The search engine said it wasn’t a single update but several minor improvements and that there weren’t any major changes as a result.

March 2017 – Fred

Google confirmed a string of updates with the caveat that they make three updates per day on average. When asked if the updates had a name, Google jokingly said all updates would be called Fred, and the name stuck. These updates seemed to be related to quality, and some impacted were sites using aggressive monetization tactics that provided a bad user experience, and that had poor-quality links. Fred was wide-reaching and focused on quality across a variety of factors, not just a single process.

One specific target was sites using aggressive monetization tactics that provided a bad user experience. Poor-quality links were also targeted by Fred. Link to an untrusted site, and it lowers your trust … and rankings.

Hazards: Sites with thin, affiliate-heavy, or ad-centered content were targeted.

Winners: Many websites featuring quality, high-value content with minimal ads benefited.

January 2017 – Interstitial Updates

Google preannounced that it would make updates in January 2017 that would impact sites with pop-ups on their pages that created a poor user experience. It confirmed this algorithm updates on January 10, 2017.

2016 ALGORITHM UPDATES

September 2016 – Penguin Integrated into Core Algorithm

Google confirmed that its webspam algorithm dubbed “Penguin” was rolled into the core algorithm. That meant that instead of manual refreshes, it would now work in real-time. Penguin would now devalue spam links instead of demoting whole sites. It also became more granular in how it worked.

Rather than demoting a site for having bad inbound links, the new Penguin tried to just do away with link spam.

Now, if a site has inbound links from known spam sites, Google just devalues (ignores) the links.

However, if a site’s backlink profile is too bad, Google may still apply a manual action for unnatural links to your website. Also, John Mueller said earlier this year that a software-induced penalty can still occur if a site has “a bunch of really bad links” (h/t Marie Haynes).

Friendlier Penguin has not proven to be 100% effective. As a result, many businesses still need help cleaning up their link profile to restore lost rankings. Google has said that you should not need to disavow files, yet also welcomes them. To me, that is a very clear signal that we should not rely on the algorithm alone when it comes to backlinks.

Hazards: Sites that had purchased links were targets, as well as those with spammy or irrelevant links, or incoming links with over-optimized anchor text.

Winners: Sites with mostly natural inbound links from relevant webpages got to rise in the SERPs.

See the detailed history of Penguin in the Penguin Algorithm Updates section.

September 1, 2016 – Possum

Possum is an unconfirmed yet widely documented Google algorithm update. This update targeted the local pack. Unlike confirmed updates, the details of the Possum update are a bit less clear. SEOs believe it sought to bring more variety into local SERPs and help increase the visibility of local companies.

With this update, Google seemed to change how it filtered duplicate listings. Before Possum, Google omitted results as duplicates if they shared the same phone number or website. With Possum, Google filtered listings that shared the same address. This created intense competition between neighboring or location-sharing businesses.

Hazards: Businesses with intense competition in their target location could be pushed out of the local results.

Winners: Businesses outside physical city limits had a chance to appear in local listings.

May 2016 – Mobile Update

Google announced ahead of time that it would increase the mobile-friendliness ranking signal in May. Google confirmed the rollout was completed on May 12.

Learn more: Mobile Friendly SEO Ranking Boost Gets Boosted in May

January 2016 – Panda Integrated into Core Algorithm

Google revealed that the Panda algorithm targeting quality was a part of the core algorithm. It was not clear when this happened exactly. Google also confirmed that even though it was part of the core algorithm, it did not operate in real-time.

This significant update is detailed below in the Panda Updates section.

Learn more: Google Explains What It Means To Be Part Of The “Core” Algorithm

2015 ALGORITHM UPDATES

October 2015 – RankBrain

Google revealed to Bloomberg that RankBrain — Google’s artificial intelligence system — was one of its top three ranking signals. Reportedly, 15 percent of queries per day have never been seen by Google before. Initially, RankBrain helped interpret those queries, but it may now be involved in every query. It’s also possible with RankBrain that searchers’ engagement with the search results is a factor in how it determines the relevancy of a result.

According to Google’s Gary Illyes on Reddit,

RankBrain is a PR-sexy machine learning ranking component that uses historical search data to predict what would a user most likely click on for a previously unseen query. It is a really cool piece of engineering that saved our butts countless times whenever traditional algos were like, e.g. “oh look a “not” in the query string! let’s ignore the hell out of it!”, but it’s generally just relying on (sometimes) months old data about what happened on the results page itself, not on the landing page. Dwell time, CTR, … those are generally made up crap. Search is much more simple than people think.

OK, if it changes the target, then it is always right. If you change the results to match a user-intent profile, then in the future, all clicks would match that profile since that is all there is. Are all searches for a particular keyword always informational? RankBrain may think so and push out ecommerce sites from the results. Fortunately, it is often correct.

Hazards: No specific losers, although sites won’t be found relevant that have shallow content, poor UX, or unfocused subject matter.

Winners: Sites creating niche content and focusing on keyword intent have a better chance of ranking.

Learn more:

July 2015 – Panda Update 4.2

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

May 2015 – Quality Update to Core Algorithm

Google confirmed a change to its algorithm (although not right away) on how it processed quality signals. Google stated that the update wasn’t intended to target any particular sites or class of sites, but was an update to the overall ranking algorithm itself.

April 2015 – Mobile-Friendly Update (“Mobilegeddon”)

Google announced ahead of time in February and then confirmed in April its mobile-friendly update was rolling out that would boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages. This update laid the foundation for Google’s mobile-first search mechanism.
The update underlined mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal and laid the foundation for the way Google’s mobile-first search mechanism works today. It was fun watching ecommerce sites try to fit 700 navigation links into a mobile menu. (Side note: There are better ways to handle mobile navigation.)

Hazards: Sites without a mobile-friendly version of the page, or with poor mobile usability, suffered.

Winners: Responsive sites and pages with an existing mobile-friendly version benefited.

2014 ALGORITHM UPDATES

October 2014 – Penguin Update 3.0

For more information on this update, please see the Penguin section below.

September 2014 – Panda Update 4.1

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

July 2014 – “Pigeon” Local Search Algorithm Update

The update dubbed Pigeon shook up the local organic results in Google Web and Map searches.

Google told Search Engine Land that it had made an update to its local ranking signals to provide better results for users. Dubbed “Pigeon,” these updates improved distance and location ranking parameters (“near me”), and incorporated more of the ranking signals used in Google’s main web search algorithms. Google said it probably wouldn’t detail any more changes to the local search algorithm in the future.

Hazards: Local businesses with poor on- and off-page SEO suffered.

Winners: Local companies with accurate NAP information and other SEO factors in place gained rankings.

Learn more: How Do I Rank Higher in Google Local Search? Bruce Clay’s Checklist for Local SEOs

June 2014 – Payday Loan Algorithm Update (3.0)

Google confirmed that the third iteration of the “Payday Loan” algorithm that targets heavily spammed queries was rolling out.

May 2014 – Payday Loan Algorithm Update (2.0)

Google confirmed the second iteration of the “Payday Loan” algorithm, impacting about 0.2% of English queries.

May 2014 – Panda Update 4.0

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

February 2014 – Page Layout Algorithm Refresh

Google announced a refresh of its page layout algorithm. Its impact was not given.

2013 ALGORITHM UPDATES

October 2013 – Penguin Update 2.1

For more information on this update, please see the Penguin Update section below.

August 2013 – Hummingbird

Hummingbird was announced in September (although it had been live since August). Hummingbird was essentially a complete overhaul of its algorithm (not an added-on update) and was the beginning of semantic search as we know it today.

Google needed a way to better understand the user intent behind a search query. Search terms that were similar but different, for example, often generated less-than-desirable results. Take the word “hammer” as an example. Is the searcher looking for the musician, the museum, or a tool to pound nails with?

Google’s Knowledge Graph was a first step. Released the year before Hummingbird, the Knowledge Graph mapped the relationships between different pieces of information about “entities.” It helped the search engine connect the dots and improve the logic of search results.

Hummingbird used semantic search to provide better results that matched the searcher’s intent. It helped Google understand conversational language, such as long-tail queries formed as questions. It impacted an estimated 90% of searches and introduced things like conversational language queries, voice search, and more.

Hazards: Pages with keyword stuffing or low-quality content couldn’t fool Google anymore.

Winners: Pages with natural-sounding, conversational writing and Q&A-style content benefited.

Learn more: Google Hummingbird & The Keyword: What You Need To Know

July 2013 – Panda Update – Recovery

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

June 2013 – Payday Loan Algorithm Update

Google announced a new algorithm to address the quality of results for heavily spammed queries such as “payday loans,” “viagra” and pornography-related keywords. Sites impacted tended to be those involved in link schemes, webspam, and often illegal activities.

Learn more: What You Need to Know About the Google Payday Loan Algorithm Update

May 2013 – Penguin Update 2.0

For more information on this update, please see the Penguin section below.

March 2013 – Panda Update #25

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

January 2013 – Panda Update #24

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

2012 ALGORITHM UPDATES

December 2012 – Panda Update #23

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

November 21, 2012 – Panda Update #22

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

November 5, 2012 – Panda Update #21

For more information on this update, please see the Panda section below.

October 2012 – Penguin Update 1.2

For more information on this update, please see the Penguin section below.

October 2012 – Page Layout Algorithm Update #2

Google announced an update to its page layout algorithm update and confirmed it impacted about 0.7% of English queries.