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Google Algorithm and It’s Important Updates

Google Algorithm Update History

Google has a long history of popularity for its search index changes, algorithm updates, and refreshes. The following is a timeline of key Google search algorithm updates.

What is Google Algorithm?

Google’s algorithms are a complicated system that retrieves data from its search index and delivers the best possible results for a query in real time. On its search engine results pages, the search engine uses a combination of algorithms and several ranking parameters to present 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. The majority of these changes are so little that they go unnoticed. However, the search engine occasionally releases substantial algorithmic improvements that have a large impact on the SERPs, such as:

  • Penguin
  • EMD (Exact Match Domain)
  • Payday
  • Hummingbird
  • Pigeon
  • Mobilegeddon
  • Quality Updates
  • RankBrain
  • Fred

All Google Algorithm Updates from Starting to Present:

We’ve prepared a comprehensive list of Google algorithm releases, upgrades, and refreshes over the years, as well as links to resources for SEO experts who wish to learn more about each of these changes.

Spam Update 📝

Confirmed on October 19, 2022  ✅

Google has released the most recent updates to its systems for detecting search spam. Google did not specify whether this update targeted links, content, or other types of spam. This was a global update that affected all languages. The whole rollout should take around a week.

Fifth Product Reviews Update 📝

Confirmed on September 20, 2022  ✅

This was the year’s second Product Reviews Update and the fifth overall. While Google generally avoids overlapping algorithm changes, this version was released before the September 2022 Core Update was complete. It was created to recognise English-language product reviews that are beneficial to searchers.

Second Broad Core Algorithm Update 📝

Confirmed on September 12, 2022  ✅

The Helpful Content Update was followed by the second Core Update of 2022, complicating any attempts at analysis. Officially, the update lasted until September 26th, however ranking flux peaked earlier, with MozCast recording 94.0° on September 12th.

Helpful Content Update 📝

Confirmed on August 15, 2022  ✅

On August 18, Google disclosed details about its new helpful content update, a sitewide signal designed to reward content that assists or informs users rather than content developed solely to score well in search results. It began on August 25 and ended 15 days later on September 9.

To guarantee that you are creating human-first content, Google has given a list of 15 questions to ask about your content reviews. It also stated that the most vulnerable forms of information will be online education materials, arts and entertainment, retail, and technology-related content. However, the effect was particularly noticeable in a few website categories (e.g., ringtones, coding, lyrics). It had a rather minor total impact.

Fourth Product Reviews Update 📝

Confirmed on July 27, 2022  ✅

Google initially stated that the fourth version of the product reviews update would take 2-3 weeks to roll out, but then reported that it had been fully rolled out after six days. This is more of a refresh than anything else, and it is intended to reward high-quality product reviews. In comparison to previous product review upgrades, this update was less widespread and had less ranking fluctuation.

Broad Core Algorithm Update 📝

Confirmed on May 25, 2022  ✅

This was the first broad core algorithm upgrade in 2022, and the first in almost 6 months. Google stated that the full rollout will take up to two weeks. Google, like all previous core updates, has made significant changes to how its ranking engines evaluate material.

Third Product Reviews Update 📝

Confirmed on March 23, 2022  ✅

The third release of the product reviews update, which will take “a few weeks” to fully roll out, builds on the work of the two previous product review updates, according to Google. This upgrade, like many before it, is intended to assist Google in identifying high-quality product evaluations and rewarding them with higher rankings.

Google included three new pieces of advice: ranked lists, “best” product recommendations, and creating evaluations for many vs. individual products.

Page Experience Update (For Desktop) 📝

Confirmed on February 22, 2022  ✅

Google said on Twitter that the page experience improvement for desktop search is being phased in and will be completed in March 2022. Google Search Central provides developers with further information on the page experience update.

Second Product Reviews Update 📝

Confirmed on December 1, 2021  ✅

The Google product reviews update, like the April Product Reviews Update, aimed to reward excellent product reviews in search results. Google intended to display users content that was intelligent and original, created by subject matter experts or fans. This upgrade took around three weeks to fully roll out.

Google’s latest advise for this update: provide links to different sellers and more multimedia “proof” around your product reviews.

Local Search Update 📝

Confirmed on November 30, 2021  ✅

This global update, according to Google, was a “rebalancing of various factors we consider in generating local search results.” It ran from November 30 to December 8, overlapping with the December 2021 Core Update and the December 2021 Product Reviews Update. However, Google did not acknowledge the update until December 16.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on November 17, 2021  ✅

This was the third and last Core Update of 2022. The November 2021 core update, like all of Google’s core updates, had a broad impact on websites and SEO across all languages, and it took roughly two weeks to fully roll out.

Link Spam Update 📝

Confirmed on July 26, 2021  ✅

Google stated that the update’s goal was to “nullify” spammy links throughout the web and in many languages. Websites with spammy links were more likely to suffer a drop in ranking. Google’s recommendation: adhere to recommended practises for all incoming and outgoing links.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on July 1, 2021  ✅

This was the second of two Core Updates released by Google in a row. The July 2021 core update, as is usual of Core updates, was a thorough update that modified the entire algorithm somewhat but did not affect any particular function explicitly. This update was released over the course of 12 days, from July 1 to July 12.

Spam Update - Part 2 📝

Confirmed on June 28, 2021  ✅

The long-awaited followup to its Spam Update. We discovered that both components of the Spam Update were “global” updates that targeted both web and image results.

Spam Update - Part 1 📝

Confirmed on June 23, 2021  ✅

Google announced the delivery of a Spam Update to their systems, followed by another the following week. There was no extra information or guidance. Google mentioned its Webmaster Guidelines in the Twitter announcement.

Page Experience Update 📝

Confirmed on June 15, 2021  ✅

Google began using Core Web Vitals, a new collection of measures, to assess how people evaluate the experience of a certain web page. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) (measures loading performance); First Input Delay (FID) (measures interactivity); and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): (measures visual stability).

Existing ranking signals such as page load speed, mobile friendliness, HTTPS, and the absence of intrusive adverts are included as part of the Page Experience Update. In May 2020, a new ranking algorithm was unveiled. The rollout began gradually and ended towards the end of August.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on June 2, 2021  ✅

Danny Sullivan, Google Search Liaison, stated on Twitter that a broad core algorithm update was going to be launched. Sullivan also mentioned that some anticipated changes were not quite ready for this release, so they will be rolled out as part of the second, related broad core algorithm update, expected for July.

Product Reviews Update 📝

Confirmed on April 8, 2021  ✅

The Product Reviews Update is intended to better reward product reviews that go above and beyond the (e.g., by including in-depth and original research, insightful analysis). Google has stated that it will prioritise these kinds of product reviews in its search results rankings.

Google has offered a list of nine questions to ask about your product reviews to ensure they are informative, feature original research, and are written by experts or enthusiasts who are knowledgeable about the subject.

Passage Ranking 📝

Confirmed on February 10, 2021  ✅

Google has begun to modify the way it ranks specific passages from web pages in search results. This update was designed to assist users in finding specific “needle in a haystack” information. According to Google, this update will affect 7% of all search searches in all languages.

Because this update was primarily about how Google reads your content, Google provided no particular suggestions on what to rectify or change.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on December 3, 2020  ✅

Google confirms that the December 2020 Core Update will be released on December 3, 2020. This is the calendar year’s third core algorithm update. When compared to the average time between these types of changes, a significant amount of time has gone since the last core update.

BERT Expands 📝

Confirmed on October 15, 2020  ✅

Google announced that BERT was now powering nearly all English-based search queries, up from 10% the year before. BERT cannot be optimised in and of itself because BERT is intended to improve the relevancy of search results by better understanding the content on webpages.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on May 4, 2020  ✅

Google released its somewhat significant May 2020 broad core algorithm update over a few weeks in early May of 2020. This update was extensive and detailed. It, like earlier core changes, was not targeted at any one aspect of the algorithm.

Featured Snippet Deduplication 📝

Confirmed on January 22, 2020  ✅

Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed on Twitter that featured snippet webpages will no longer be repeated in regular Page 1 organic listings. This change had an impact on 100% of all search listings worldwide.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on January 13, 2020  ✅

The January 2020 Core Update, a rather light core update, was not felt substantially by SEO professionals. It was quickly followed by the significantly more extensive May 2020 core update, which came just four months later.

BERT (Worldwide) 📝

Confirmed on December 9, 2019  ✅

Google’s Danny Sullivan tweeted that BERT was starting its global rollout, which includes the languages listed below: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia), Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

BERT (Worldwide) 📝

Confirmed on December 9, 2019  ✅

Google’s Danny Sullivan tweeted that BERT was starting its global rollout, which includes the languages listed below: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia), Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

BERT Update 📝

Confirmed on October 25, 2019  ✅

Google introduced the BERT Update, describing it as the most significant update to Google search in the last five years. BERT models are used by Google to better comprehend search queries. Google stated that this move affected both search rankings and featured snippets, and that BERT (which stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will be utilised on 10% of English searches in the United States.

Broad Core Algorithm Update 📝

Confirmed on September 24, 2019  ✅

In a tweet, Google’s Danny Sullivan stated that a large core algorithm update would be made within a few hours and would take a few days to fully roll out. Google’s advice was consistent with all other recent core algorithm improvements.

Featured Snippets Update 📝

Confirmed on August 1, 2019  ✅

Google announced an algorithm modification that affects the freshness of highlighted snippets in search results. This change will enable Google to discover the most recent highlighted snippets for queries requiring current information.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on June 2, 2019  ✅

On June 2, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted that a new broad core algorithm update would be released on June 3. The next day, Google announced that the update was online and that it would be sent out to its various data centres over the next few days. Google tells us that, like with any broad core algorithm update, there is nothing specific to solve because a core update spans a wide range of parameters.

Core Update (A.K.A. Florida 2) 📝

Confirmed on March 12, 2019  ✅

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, confirmed the release of a global broad core algorithm update on Twitter. This update is especially significant and one of the most significant Google updates in recent years. Sullivan reiterated its recommendation to follow the instructions offered following the March 9, 2018 update.

'Medic' Core Update 📝

Confirmed on August 1, 2018  ✅

The August 2018 broad core algorithm update was a core change that shocked the SEO industry. Google made significant changes to their algorithm in this update, rewarding previously under-rewarded web pages.

Google stated that there is “no fix” for any observed decline in rankings. The rating dips were just the result of other under-recognized sites finally gaining ground.

What is Google’s advise to webmasters who have seen their rankings drop? Continue to create quality content, and your site may rise back up the ranks.

Chrome Security Warnings (Full Site) 📝

Confirmed on July 24, 2018  ✅

After months of warning users about unprotected (non-HTTPS) forms, Chrome 68 began labelling all non-HTTPS sites as “not secure.” The adjustments went into effect on July 24, but users must first install the most recent Chrome version, which can take weeks or months.

Mobile Speed Update 📝

Confirmed on July 9, 2018  ✅

Google handed out the mobile page speed change six months after announcing it, making page speed a ranking consideration for mobile results. Google said that this primarily affected the slowest mobile sites, and that there was no indication of significant changes in mobile ranks.

Video Carousels 📝

Confirmed on June 14, 2018  ✅

Google switched videos from organic-like results with thumbnails to a dedicated video carousel, triggering a reshuffling of previously tracked organic results. Simultaneously, the number of SERPs containing videos climbed dramatically.

Snippet Length Drop 📝

Confirmed on May 13, 2018  ✅

After months of testing longer display snippets of up to 300+ characters, Google returned most snippets to the previous restriction (about 150-160 characters).

Mobile-First Index Rollout 📝

Confirmed on March 26, 2018  ✅

The mobile-first index was finally “rolling out,” according to Google. Because the index has been in testing for several months and Google has stated that they are progressively moving sites, it is unclear how much of an impact this single roll-out has on the broader index. Google Search Console messages should begin to appear for webmasters.

Zero-Result SERP Test 📝

Confirmed on March 14, 2018  ✅

Google began presenting zero organic results and a “Show all results” button on a small collection of Knowledge Cards, including some time/date searches and unit conversion calculators. Google halted this test a week later, but we believe it is a significant foreshadowing of things to come.

'Brackets' Core Update 📝

Confirmed on March 8, 2018  ✅

Google verified a “core” update on March 7th, however volatility jumped as early as March 4th, followed by a second spike on March 8th, and lasted over two weeks. This could have been a series of releases or one continuous, rolling update. Glenn Gabe coined the term “Brackets,” but Google provided no further information.

Snippet Length Increase 📝

Confirmed on November 30, 2017  ✅

Google increased the length of search snippets across a wide number of results after evaluating them for over two years. As a result, we increased the Meta Description character restriction from 155 to 300. (almost doubling). Google confirmed an improvement to the way snippets are handled, but provided no further specifics.

Chrome Security Warnings (Forms) 📝

Confirmed on October 17, 2017  ✅

Google began warning visitors to sites with insecure forms with the release of Chrome 62. While not an algorithm change, this was a significant step in Google’s push toward HTTPS and may have a significant impact on site traffic.

Google Jobs 📝

Confirmed on June 20, 2017  ✅

Google has officially launched its jobs portal, which includes a separate three-pack of job postings in search results. These findings drew information from nearly every major supplier, including LinkedIn, Monster, Glassdoor, and CareerBuilder.

Intrusive Interstitial Penalty 📝

Confirmed on January 10, 2017  ✅

Google has begun to implement a penalty to penalise aggressive interstitials and pop-ups that may harm the mobile user experience. Google also issued an uncommon five-month warning about this update. Many SEOs observed that the impact on sites that should have been affected was minor.

Penguin Update 4.0 📝

Confirmed on September 23, 2016  ✅

Google updated its Penguin algorithm for the final time after nearly two years. Google revealed that Penguin had been integrated into its core search algorithm, which meant that data was refreshed in real-time. It also got more detailed, implying that Penguin may affect ranking for individual pages on a site, sections of a site, or the entire site.

Possum Update 📝

Confirmed on September 1, 2016  ✅

This update has an impact on local listings. In a nutshell, the Possum Update altered the way Google’s filters functioned.

What exactly are filters? Google’s local search filters exclude websites that appear to be repetitive. For local businesses, this might mean that if you have two websites for your service, only one of them will appear for a specific local search keyword.

The Possum update was designed to improve Google’s user experience, but it may have gone too far. Certain firms that were close to other businesses that previously ranked in Google’s SERPs witnessed a large drop in traffic to their website.

Mobile Friendly Update 2 📝

Confirmed on April 21, 2016  ✅

This update was more of a supplement to the 2015 Mobile-Friendly Update, which was a real-time, page-by-page signal that only affected mobile search results. The purpose of this update was to “improve the effect of the [mobile-friendly] ranking signal.”

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on January 17, 2016  ✅

The search results showed significant volatility. Gary Illyes of Google confirmed the update to the core ranking algorithm.

Core Update 📝

Confirmed on January 10, 2016  ✅

Following a weekend of ranking changes and fluctuations, Google stated on Jan. 12 that it was due to a core ranking algorithm update.