Google's Algorithm Updates in the Past

What are Google Algorithms and How Do They Work?

The algorithms employed by Google to retrieve material from its search index and offer the best possible results for a query are a complex system. On its search engine results pages, the search engine uses a combination of algorithms and several ranking parameters to offer webpages rated by relevancy (SERPs).

Google's algorithms were only updated a few times in its early years. Every year, Google makes thousands of updates.

We've prepared a comprehensive list of Google algorithm releases, upgrades, and refreshes over the years, as well as connections to resources for SEO experts interested in learning more about each of these changes.

Updates on everything

26th of July, 2021

The Google Link Spam Algorithm has been updated.

Google announced that it was starting to push out an algorithm update focused at detecting and eliminating link spam. Google has cautioned that sites that engage in link spam strategies may see their rankings affected, with sponsored, guest, and affiliate content being the most vulnerable. The update will be fully rolled out in "at least" two weeks, according to Google, and will affect multiple languages.

12th of July, 2021

The July 2021 Core Update has been completed.

The July 2021 Core Update distribution was successfully completed on July 12th, according to Google Search Liaison. There were no other details supplied. confirmed via Twitter

1st of July, 2021

Core Update for July 2021

The July 2021 Core Update is rolling out, according to Google Search Liaison, and will take one to two weeks to complete. The Google Search Central Blog contains Google's guidance for core changes.

28th of June, 2021

Part 2 of the Spam Update

Google Search Liaison said on Twitter that the second phase of their spam update would begin on June 28th and will most likely be completed that day. The original announcement related to a post on the Google Search Central Blog about how Google combated Search spam in 2020, which was updated in April 2021.

23rd of June, 2021

Spam Update for June 2021

Google's Danny Sullivan announced on Twitter that a spam-fighting algorithm change was being rolled out to search results. The upgrade was supposed to go live on the same day. Within a week, he said, a second spam upgrade would be released. Google did not specify who or what this upgrade was aimed against.

15th of June, 2021

Changes to the Page Experience

Google has begun pushing out its long-awaited Page Experience update. According to Google, sites should not expect major changes as a result of this update, and any unexpected decreases or spikes should be reduced by the progressive deployment procedure. By the end of August 2021, the implementation will be complete.

10th of June, 2021

Protection for Known Victims

Pandu Nayak, who was born on June 10th,

On The Keyword blog, Google Fellow and Vice President of Search, wrote a piece. He talked about Google's efforts to improve the algorithm so that sites that "use exploitative removals tactics" and "predatory practises" are demoted. He also provided a link for reporting internet harassment.

2 June 2021

Update to the Broad Core Algorithm

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, announced on Twitter that a major core algorithm upgrade was going to be launched. Some anticipated changes were not ready for this update, according to Sullivan, so those components will be sent out as part of a second, related broad core algorithm update expected for July.

8th of April, 2021

Update on Product Reviews

“Product reviews that provide in-depth research, rather than thin information that just summarises a variety of products,” according to the new search ranking algorithm update. Google also included nine things to think about while writing and publishing product reviews in their release.

10 February 2021

Ranking of the passages

Danny Sullivan, Google's Public Liaison for Search, announced on Twitter that Passage Ranking is now available in the United States for English-language inquiries. “This shift doesn't mean we're indexing individual sections independently of pages,” Google says. We're still indexing pages and using information from complete pages to rank them. However, we can now use excerpts from pages as a ranking component as well...”

3rd of December, 2020

Core Update for December 2020

The December 2020 Core Update, according to Google, will be carried out on December 3, 2020. This is the calendar year's third core algorithm upgrade. In comparison to the normal duration between these types of upgrades, a significant amount of time has gone since the last core update.

4 May 2020

Core Update for May 2020

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, stated on Twitter that Google would be launching a major core algorithm upgrade. He reported the upgrade was starting 90 minutes later, and that it would take 1-2 weeks to complete.

22nd of January, 2020

Deduplication of Featured Snippets

On Twitter, Google's Danny Sullivan confirmed that webpages in the featured snippet position will no longer be replicated in ordinary Page 1 organic listings. This adjustment has a global impact on 100 percent of all search results.

13th of January, 2020

Core Update for January 2020

A large core algorithm update is about to be deployed, according to Google's Danny Sullivan. Google's advise was the same as it had been for all of the other recent big core algorithm improvements.

9th of December, 2019

BERTRAND (Worldwide)

BERT was starting its global rollout, according to Google's Danny Sullivan, and includes the following languages: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian And Malaya

25th of October, 2019

NEWS FROM BERT

The BERT Update was announced by Google, and it is described as the most significant upgrade to Google search in the last five years. To better understand search queries, Google employs BERT models. This move affected both search rankings and featured snippets, according to Google, and BERT (which stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will be utilised on 10% of English searches in the United States.

24th of September, 2019

Update to the Broad Core Algorithm

A broad core algorithm update will be released within a few hours, according to Google's Danny Sullivan, and it will take a few days to fully roll out. Google's advice was consistent with its previous guidance for all other recent core algorithm upgrades.

Tuesday, June 2, 2019

Core Update for June 2019

On June 2, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted that a new broad core algorithm upgrade would be released on June 3. Google verified the upgrade was online the next day, and that it would be spreading out to its various data centres over the next few days. Because a core algorithm update spans a wide variety of criteria, Google says there is nothing specific to solve, as is the case with any large core algorithm change.

12th of March, 2019

Core Update for March 2019 (a.k.a. Florida 2)

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, acknowledged the deployment of a global broad core algorithm update through Twitter. This change, according to SEJ, is very significant and one of the most significant Google updates in years. Following the March 9, 2018 update, Sullivan reiterated its recommendation to follow the instructions it gave.

13th of February, 2019

Update on Valentine's Day

Some type of unverified update occurred on or before this date, according to algorithm trackers and industry talk. Unlike earlier revisions, however, the majority of changes in rankings were deemed to be good.

31st of October 2018

Halloween Update (Unconfirmed)

Some webmasters noticed changes around Halloween, which could be due to a (unconfirmed) Google upgrade. However, there was little evidence of a major upgrade in this case. The more likely source of the commotion was spillover from Google's August wide core algorithm upgrade and increased usage of neural matching.

27th of September, 2018

A "Minor" Update

Many in the SEO industry began seeing big spikes and reductions in traffic on September 27 (Google's 20th birthday), signalling that an update was in the works. According to reports, several of the sites that were hit by the August broad core algorithm upgrade have recovered. Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, stated on Twitter on September 29 that a "minor" modification had occurred (but that it wasn't a major core algorithm update).

16th of April, 2018

Update to the Broad Core Algorithm

Google announced the introduction of a new broad core algorithm update on Twitter, indicating that it was comparable to the March 9, 2018 update, which focused on content relevance.

9th of March, 2018

Update to the Broad Core Algorithm

Google acknowledged through Twitter on March 12 that a "wide core algorithm upgrade" had been sent out the week before. While Google was tight-lipped on the adjustments, it did say that they were intended to “benefit pages that were previously under-rewarded,” and that everyone should “keep generating outstanding content.”

12th of December, 2017

Update on the Maccabees

Between December 12 and 14, some members of the search community complained that their websites were affected by an update. Several modest adjustments to the fundamental algorithm were verified by Google during that interval, but the relevance of the period of flux was minimised.

8th of September, 2017

Fall Flux

According to industry rumours and SEO tracking tools, a (yet unverified) Google upgrade occurred on this day. Since September 8, Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, has noticed many notable Google changes affecting traffic and search prominence. Additional volatility and swings occurred on September 18, 25, and 29, as well as throughout October 4, 8, and 12.

Quality Update: August 19, 2017

On August 19-20, webmasters and SEO ranking tools identified some slight instability, with evidence pointing to another (unconfirmed) Google quality update. According to Glenn Gabe, president of GSQi, category pages, pages with aggressive advertising, lower-quality/thin content, and other bad user experience features are among the ranking casualties. There was considerable conjecture that Google began testing this algorithm on August 14, because pages that were impacted (positively or adversely) on that date were impacted again on August 19.

9th of July, 2017

Quality Improvements

On July 9, SEO ranking tools observed a tiny fluctuation, possibly due to another (unconfirmed) Google quality update.

25th of June, 2017

Updated on June 25th

On this date, several SEO tracking software identified a substantial, though unconfirmed, Google upgrade. According to one study, this modification had the greatest impact on pages ranked in positions 6-10. While it affected numerous industries, the food and beverage industry was said to be the hardest hit.

17th of May, 2017

Quality Improvements

SEO tracking tools revealed a lot of SERP fluctuation starting on May 17 and extending for nearly a week. While the impact appears to be minor, sites affected by the upgrade have issues with aggressive/deceptive advertising, poor user experience, and thin/low-quality content.

7th of March, 2017

Fred

Gary Illyes, a Google engineer, playfully dubbed the upgrade "Fred," and the moniker stuck. For those who were affected, however, this algorithm was no laughing matter. This substantial algorithm change appeared to be aimed mostly at low-value content. Illyes officially verified the upgrade on March 24. However, Google has declined to provide any additional details, instead stating that all of the answers to Fred's questions can be found in Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines.

7th of February, 2017

Updated on February 7th

This unverified large upgrade caused major changes in Google's SERPs, as well as significant gains or drops for some websites. Overall, it appears that websites with higher quality and relevance have acquired the most prominence.

1st of February 2017

Updated on February 1st

This was a Google update that was modest and unconfirmed. Although all information regarding this upgrade is speculative, it appeared to be directed at private blog networks and spammy link builders.

10th of January, 2017

Update on Intrusive Interstitials

Google revealed an imminent adjustment on August 23, 2016, that would target invasive interstitials and pop-ups that degrade the mobile search experience. This update was released on January 10, 2017, as promised. This change had a little impact on rankings.

10 November 2016

Update with no name

Some type of unsubstantiated Google change occurred on November 10, according to search industry talk and data from SEO tracking software.

23 September 2016

Penguin Update 4.0 & Integration of the Core Algorithm

Penguin's final update saw it integrated into Google's main algorithm, which meant Penguin could now evaluate websites and links in real time. Penguin undervalued links rather than lowering page ranks, which was a significant change.

1 June 2016

Quality Improvements

Data suggests that another content-related Quality Update to Google's algorithm began rolling out around June 1, with additional search ranking instability noted on June 8, 21, and 26.

12th of May, 2016

(#2) Mobile-Friendly Update

The second Mobile-Friendly Update (also known as "Mobilegeddon 2") was a follow-up to Google's first mobile-friendly update, with the goal of "intensifying the influence of the ranking signal."

11th of January, 2016

Incorporation of the Panda Core Algorithm

Panda was apparently incorporated into the main Google algorithm as part of the gradual Panda 4.2 deployment, according to Google. In other words, Panda is no longer a post-processing filter for the Google algorithm; it is instead one of the algorithm's basic ranking signals. However, it should be noted that this does not imply that the Panda classifier operates in real time.