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Google Search algorithm updates since 2002

Kristof Maret
google update MAJ

Every year, Google changes its search algorithm about 500 to 600 times. While most of these changes are minor, Google occasionally releases a “major” algorithmic update (as were Google Panda and Google Penguin) that significantly affects search results.

For search engine marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain changes in organic website rankings and traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization. Below, we’ve listed the top algorithmic changes that have had the biggest impact on search.

 

2018 Updates

“Medic” Core Update— August 1, 2018

(Confirmed)

Google has confirmed a “core algorithm update,” with numerous reports of massive impact. It took place over a period of about a week, but peaked on August 1 and 2. This update appeared to disproportionately affect sites in the health and wellness vertical, although a large-scale impact was seen across all verticals.

Chrome Security Warnings (Full Site) — July 24, 2018

(Confirmed)

After warning users of insecure (non-HTTPS) forms several months earlier, Chrome 68 began marking all non-HTTPS sites as “insecure.” The changes were made on July 24, but users must install the latest version of Chrome, which can take weeks or even months.

Unnamed Update — July 21, 2018 (Unconfirmed)

Algorithm tracking and webmaster discussions have reported a significant flow of rankings, but Google has not confirmed. MozCast recorded its highest temperature in 2018 at 11°C.

Mobile Speed Update— July 9, 2018

(Confirmed)

Six months after its announcement, Google rolled out the mobile page speed update, making page speed a ranking factor for mobile results. Google claimed that this only affected the slowest mobile sites and that there was no evidence of major changes in mobile rankings.

Video Carousels – June 14, 2018

(Confirmed)

Google moved organic video results by placing thumbnails in a dedicated video carousel, which upset the results previously tracked as such. At the same time, the number of SERPs with videos has increased significantly (+60% in MozCast).

Unnamed Update — May 23, 2018 (Unconfirmed)

Algorithm tracking tools and webmaster discussions have shown intense activity, but Google has not confirmed an update. MozCast showed very high temperatures over a 3-day period, peaking on May 23.

Duration of the code snippet — May 13, 2018

Confirmed

After testing snippets of up to 300 characters or more for a few months, Google brought most snippets back to the previous limit (about 150 to 160 characters).

Unnamed Kernel Update — April 17, 2018

Confirmed

MozCast detected a heavy algorithm stream that peaked on April 17 and continued for more than a week. Later, Google confirmed a “main” update, but did not provide any specific information and the update was not named by Google or the SEO community.

Mobile-First Index— March 26, 2018

Confirmed

Google has announced that the first mobile index is finally rolling out. Since the index has been in testing for many months and Google has suggested gradually migrating its sites, the impact of this specific rollout on the overall impact has not been clearly defined. The webmaster should start seeing notifications in Google Search Console.

Zero-Result SERP Test — March 14, 2018

Confirmed

On a small set of knowledge cards, including date/time queries and unit conversion calculators, Google began showing zero natural results and a “Show All Results” button. A week later, Google stopped this test, but we think it’s an important sign of the future.

“Brackets” Core Update— March 8, 2018

Confirmed

Google confirmed an “essential” update on March 7, but volatility increased as early as March 4, with a second hike on March 8 and continued for nearly two weeks. This can be multiple updates or a continuous, extended update. The name “Brackets” was coined by Glenn Gabe; no details were provided by Google.

Unnamed Update — February 20, 2018

Not confirmed

The rankings showed a spike in volatility (across a number of tools) around February 20, which quickly stabilized, sometimes signaling a targeted algorithm update. Google has not confirmed any updates for this period.

2017 Updates

Maccabees Update — December 14, 2017

Not confirmed

Chatter and several tools showed the volatility of the leaderboard around December 14. Barry Schwartz named this update “Maccabees,” but Google would only confirm that several small updates have taken place in the general timeline. Updates made before the holidays tend to attract more attention (and are usually rarer) due to their disruptive effect on e-commerce.

Excerpt length increase — November 30, 2017

Confirmed

After testing longer search snippets for more than two years, Google multiplied them with a large number of results. This led us to adopt a new meta description limit: up to 300 characters out of the previous 155 (almost double). Google has confirmed an update to how snippets are handled, but has not provided details.

Unnamed Update — November 14, 2017

Not confirmed

Algorithm followers and webmaster discussions detected a large amount of feeds, peaking (in our data) around November 15. Google has not confirmed an official update.

Featured Clip Drop — October 27, 2017

Not confirmed

From October 27 to 31, there was a substantial drop in the number of featured singles. This coincided with a jump in knowledge panels, as Google seemed to add many panels for general terms and objects (“travel,” “restroom,” “web design,” etc.). Some of these signs disappeared around December 15.

Chrome Security Advisories (Forms) — October 17, 2017

Confirmed

With the launch of Chrome 62, Google began warning visitors about sites with insecure forms. While this is not an algorithm update, it was an important step in Google’s initiative in favor of the HTTPS protocol and could have a big impact on site traffic.

Unnamed Update — September 27, 2017

Not confirmed

Algorithm followers (including MozCast) and discussions with webmasters saw an increase in data flow from September 25, which seemed to accentuate on the 27th after a period of relative calm. No updates have been officially confirmed.

Google Jobs — June 20, 2017

Confirmed

Google has officially launched its job portal, including a set of 3 independent job postings in search results. These results resulted in data from nearly every major vendor, including LinkedIn, Monster, Glassdoor, and CareerBuilder.

Unnamed Update — May 17, 2017

Not confirmed

MozCast and other tools helped track a massive multi-day spike that began around May 17. This preceded a sustained period of high algorithmic flows that may not have settled in months.

Google Tops 50% HTTPS — April 16, 2017

Not confirmed

According to our MozCast 10K tracking set, half of Google’s organic page 1 results were secure/HTTP as of mid-April. This figure increased to almost 75% by the end of 2017.

“Fred” (Unconfirmed) — March 8, 2017

Not confirmed

Google launched what seemed like a major update, with reports of widespread impacts in the SEO community. Gary Illyes, jokingly, is nicknamed “Fred” and the name stuck, but he later clarified that this was not an official confirmation.

Unnamed Update — February 6, 2017

Confirmed

The algorithm changes starting on February 1 continued for a full week, peaking around February 6 (some reported on the 7th). Webmaster discussions and industry case studies suggest that these were separate events.

Unnamed Update — February 1, 2017

Not confirmed

There was a period of high flow of algorithms starting around February 1 and peaking around February 6. It’s unclear whether these were multiple algorithm updates or a single update with an extensive rollout, but anecdotal evidence suggests at least two updates.

Intrusive interstitial penalty — January 10, 2017

Confirmed

Google has started applying a penalty to punish aggressive interstitials and pop-ups that can harm the mobile user experience. Google also provided a rare warning about this update five months in advance. MozCast showed high temperatures from January 10 to 11, but many SEOs reported minimal impact on sites that should have been affected.

2016 Updates

Unnamed Update — December 14, 2016

Not confirmed

Several Google trackers showed a massive stream around December 14 and 15, including a rare MozCast temperature of 109°F. The Webmaster’s chatter was also intense, but Google didn’t confirm an update.

Unnamed Update — November 10, 2016

Not confirmed

MozCast detected a large peak (106°) on November 10 and another on November 18. Discussions in the industry have been strong in both periods, with some suggesting that the second hike was a reversal of the first update. Google has not confirmed any of these events. Many people have reported bad dates in the SERPs during the same period, but it’s unclear if this is a cause or just a coincidence.

Penguin 4.0, Phase 2 – October 6, 2016

Not confirmed

The second phase of Penguin 4.0 was the reversal of all previous penalties. This appeared to happen after the new code was deployed, and may have taken up to two weeks. Post-penguin activity had a final spike on October 6 (116°), but it’s unclear whether this is Penguin or a new update. The temperature of the algorithm finally started to drop after October 6.

Penguin 4.0, Phase 1 – September 27, 2016

Confirmed

The first phase of Penguin 4.0, likely to launch around September 22-23, was the rollout of Penguin’s new “softer” algorithm, which devalues bad links instead of penalizing sites. The exact timeline has not been confirmed, but we believe that the full update took at least a few days, and it may have corresponded to a peak in the algorithm’s temperature (113°) on September 27.

Announcing Penguin 4.0 – September 23, 2016

Confirmed

After almost two years of waiting, Google has finally announced a major update to Penguin. They suggested that the new Penguin should now be real-time and integrated into the “base” algorithm. Early impact assessments were modest, but it was later revealed that the rollout of Penguin 4.0 was unusually long and multi-phased (see September 27 and October 6).

Image/Universal Drop — September 13, 2016

Not confirmed

MozCast recorded a near-record temperature of 111°C and a 50% drop in SERPs with image results (universal/vertical). The universal result change opened up an organic position on page 1, causing significant ranking changes, but it’s likely that this was part of a much larger update.

“Possum” — September 1, 2016

Not confirmed

Although not confirmed by Google, MozCast recorded extreme temperatures of 108°C and a decline in the prevalence of local packs, and the local SEO community noted a major reshuffle in pack results. The data suggests that this update (or a concurrent update) also had a significant impact on organic results.

Mobile-friendly 2— May 12, 2016

Confirmed

A little over a year after the original “mobile-friendly” update, Google has launched another ranking signal boost in favor of sites that support mobile search. Since the majority of the sites we track are already mobile-friendly, the impact of the latest update was likely low.

Unnamed Update — May 10, 2016

Not confirmed

MozCast and other Google weather trackers showed a pattern of algorithm activity of historically rare duration, including a 97-degree peak. Google would not confirm this update and no explanation is currently available.

AdWords Reorganization — February 23, 2016

Confirmed

Google has made major changes to AdWords, removing ads from the right-hand column entirely and deploying 4-ad blocks in many commercial searches. It was an update to paid search, but it had significant implications for CTR, both for paid results and organic results, especially for competing keywords.

Unnamed Update — January 8, 2016

Not confirmed

Several tracking tools (including MozCast) reported a significant ranking move, which Google later confirmed as a “central update.” Google has officially stated that this is not a Penguin update, but the details remain unclear.

2015 Updates

RankBrain* — October 26, 2015

Confirmed

Google has made a major announcement, revealing that machine learning has been part of the algorithm for months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor. *Note: This is an announcement date — we believe the actual launch was closer to spring 2015.

Panda 4.2 — July 17, 2015

Confirmed

Google has announced an update to Panda (likely a data refresh), indicating that the full rollout could take several months. The immediate impact was unclear, and there were no clear signs of a major algorithm update.

Quality Update — May 3, 2015

Confirmed

After numerous reports of large-scale ranking changes, originally dubbed “Phantom 2,” Google acknowledged that a change in the central algorithm was impacting “quality signals.” This update appears to have had a big impact, but Google hasn’t revealed any details about the nature of the signals involved.

Mobile Update AKA “Mobilegeddon” — April 22, 2015

Confirmed

In a rare case, Google announced an update to its algorithm beforehand, informing us that mobile rankings would be different for mobile-friendly sites starting April 21. In the short term, the impact of this update was much less significant than expected, and our data showed that the flow of algorithms peaked on April 22.

Find more mobile-friendly search results (Google)

7 days after Mobilegeddon: How dark has the sky been? (Moz)

Unnamed Update — February 4, 2015

Not confirmed

Several SERP followers and many webmasters have reported significant feeds in Google’s SERP. Speculations ranged from an e-commerce-focused update to a mobile-friendliness update. Google has not officially confirmed an update.

Important Google Search Algorithm Update Yesterday (SER)

Google Brand-eCommerce “Update” Causing Fluctuations (Searchmetrics)

2014 Updates

Pigeon Expands (UK, CA, AU) — December 22, 2014

Confirmed

The major update to Google’s local algorithm, dubbed “Pigeon”, has been extended to the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The initial update was launched in the United States in July 2014. The update was confirmed on the 22nd, but may have been released as early as the 19th.

Penguin Everflux— December 10, 2014

Confirmed

A Google representative said Penguin has moved toward continuous updates, moving away from infrequent major updates. Even though the exact timeline was unclear, this claim seemed to align with the ongoing flow after Penguin 3.0 (including unconfirmed claims of a Penguin 3.1).

Pirate 2.0 – October 21, 2014

Confirmed

More than two years after the original DMCA/”Pirate” update, Google has launched another update to combat software and digital media piracy. This update was highly targeted, resulting in a dramatic drop in rankings in a relatively small group of sites.

Penguin 3.0 — October 17, 2014

Confirmed

More than a year after the previous Penguin update (2.1), Google has launched a Penguin refresh. This update seemed smaller than expected (<1% of US/UK queries affected) and was likely data-only (this was not a new Penguin algorithm). The timing of the update was unclear, especially internationally, and Google claimed that it was spread out over several weeks.

In the News box — October 1, 2014

Confirmed

Google made what appeared to be a display change in News-box results, but later announced that it had expanded news links to a much larger set of potential sites. The presence of news results in the SERPs has also increased, and major news sites have reported significant changes in traffic.

Panda 4.1 — September 23, 2014

Confirmed

Google announced a significant update to Panda, which included an algorithmic component. They estimated the impact at 3-5% of the queries concerned. Given the “slow rollout,” the exact timeline was unclear.

Authorship deleted — August 28, 2014

Confirmed

On the heels of the publication of the author photos on June 28, Google announced that it would remove author markup altogether (and no longer process it). The next morning, author signatures had disappeared from all the SERPs.

HTTPS/SSL Update — August 6, 2014

Confirmed

After months of speculation, Google announced that it would prioritize secure sites and that the addition of encryption would give the ranking a boost. They stressed that this boost would start small, but that it could increase if the change turned out to be positive.

Pigeon — July 24, 2014

Confirmed

Google has shaken up the world of local SEO with an update that has significantly changed some local results and changed the way they process and interpret location signals. Google claimed that Pigeon had created closer links between the local algorithm and the main algorithm(s).

Author’s photo submission — June 28, 2014

Confirmed

John Mueller made a surprise announcement (on June 25) that Google would remove all author photos from the SERPs (after strongly encouraging creation as a connection to Google+). The fall was complete around June 28.

Payday Loan 3.0 – June 12, 2014

Confirmed

Less than a month after the anti-spam update of Payday Loan 2.0, Google has launched another major iteration. Official statements suggested that version 2.0 targeted specific sites, while version 3.0 targeted spammy queries.

Panda 4.0 (No. 26) — May 19, 2014

Confirmed

Google has confirmed a major update to Panda likely including an algorithm update and data refresh. Officially, about 7.5% of English-language queries were affected. While Matt Cutts said the launch started on 5/20, our data strongly suggests that it started earlier.

Payday Loan 2.0 – May 16, 2014

Confirmed

Just before Panda 4.0, Google updated its “payday loan” algorithm, which specifically targets spammy queries. The exact date of the rollout wasn’t clear (Google said “last weekend” on 5/20) and back-to-back updates made the details difficult to sort out.

Unnamed Update — March 24, 2014

Not confirmed

The main algorithm feed followers and webmaster discussions increased between 3/24 and 3/25, and some assumed that Panda’s new “softer” update had arrived. Many sites have reported changes in rankings, but this update has never been confirmed by Google.

Layout n° 3 – February 6, 2014

Confirmed

Google has “updated” its layout algorithm, also known as “top heavy”. Initially launched in January 2012, the layout algorithm penalizes sites with too many ads above the fold.

2013 Updates

Editorial Reshuffle — December 19, 2013

Not confirmed

As predicted by Matt Cutts at Pubcon Las Vegas, the markup in authorship disappeared from about 15% of queries over a period of about a month. The fall ended around December 19, but the numbers remain volatile and have not returned to previous highs.

Unnamed Update — December 17, 2013

Not confirmed

Almost all global flow trackers recorded historically high activity. Google would not confirm an update, suggesting avoiding updates as the holidays approach. MozCast also saw an uptick in some partial match domains (PMDs), but the trends were unclear.

Unnamed Update — November 14, 2013

Not confirmed

Several Google followers noted unusual activity, which coincided with a report of widespread DNS errors in Google Webmaster Tools. Google has not confirmed an update and the cause and nature of this feed was unclear.

Penguin 2.1 — October 4, 2013

Confirmed

After a delay of 4 and a half months, Google has launched another Penguin update. Given the 2.1 designation, this was likely a data update (mostly) and not a major change to the Penguin algorithm. The overall impact seemed moderate, although some webmasters said they were hit hard.

Colibri — August 20, 2013

Confirmed

Announced on September 26, Google suggested that the “Hummingbird” update was launched about a month earlier. Our best-guess scenario would be related to a MozCast spike on August 20 and numerous stream reports from August 20 to August 22. Hummingbird has been compared to caffeine and appears to be an update to the core algorithm that may result in changes to semantic search and the knowledge graph for months to come.

Main Articles — August 6, 2013

Confirmed

Google has added a new type of result called “in-depth articles,” which are dedicated to more continuous and long-form content. At launch, it contained links to three articles and was featured in about 3% of the searches that MozCast tracks.

Unnamed Update — July 26, 2013

Not confirmed

MozCast detected a strong Friday spike (105°F), with other sources reporting significant activity over the weekend. Google has not confirmed this update.

Knowledge Graph Expansion— July 19, 2013

Not confirmed

Apparently, overnight, queries with Knowledge Graph (KG) entries were expanded by more than half (+50.4%) on the MozCast dataset, with more than a quarter of all searches showing some sort of KG entry.

Panda Recovery— July 18, 2013

Confirmed

Google confirmed an update to Panda, but it was unclear if it was a 10-day rolling update or something new. The implication was that it was algorithmic and that it may have “mitigated” some earlier penalties in Panda.

Multi-week update — June 27, 2013

Confirmed

Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted a response suggesting an algorithm update “over several weeks” between June 12 and the week after July 4. The nature of the update was unclear, but there was massive volatility in the rankings during this period, peaking on June 27 (according to data from MozCast). It seems that Google tested some changes that were later reversed.

Payday Loan Update — June 11, 2013

Confirmed

Google has announced a targeted update to its algorithm to take niches with notoriously spammy results, specifically mentioning payday loans and pornography. The update was announced on June 11, but Matt Cutts suggested rolling it out over a period of one to two months.

Panda Dance — June 11, 2013

Not confirmed

While this is not a Panda update, Matt Cutts made an important clarification to SMX Advanced, suggesting that Panda was still updating Panda, but each update was rolling out over about 10 days. It wasn’t the “everflux” that many people expected after Panda #25.

Penguin 2.0 (No. 4) — May 22, 2013

Confirmed

After months of speculation bordering on hype, Penguin’s 4th update (dubbed “2.0” by Google) has arrived with a moderate impact. The exact nature of the changes was unclear, but some evidence suggested that Penguin 2.0 was more specifically targeted at the page level.

Overcrowding Domain — May 21, 2013

Confirmed

Google has released an update to control domain clutter/diversity at the core of the SERPs (2+ pages). The timing was unclear, but it seemed like the launch was imminent just before Penguin 2.0 in the US and possibly on the same day on the international stage.

“Ghost” — May 9, 2013

Not confirmed

Around May 9, there were numerous reports of an algorithm update (also verified by high MozCast activity). The exact nature of this update was unknown, but many sites reported a significant loss of traffic.

Panda #25 — March 14, 2013

Not confirmed

Matt Cutts pre-announced a Panda update to SMX West and suggested that this would be the last update before Panda is integrated into the core algorithm. The exact date has not been confirmed, but data from MozCast suggests 3/13-3/14.

Panda #24 — January 22, 2013

Confirmed

Google announced its first official update of 2013, reporting 1.2% of queries affected. This didn’t seem to be related to an update to 1/17-18 (which Google hasn’t confirmed).

2012 Updates

Panda #23 — December 21, 2012

Confirmed

Just before the Christmas holidays, Google released another update to Panda. They officially call it a “refresh”, impacting 1.3% of English queries. This was a slightly higher impact than pandas 21 and 22.

Knowledge Graph Expansion— December 4, 2012

Confirmed

Google has added the Knowledge Graph feature to non-English queries, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and Italian. This update was “more than just a translation” and improved KG functionality.

Panda #22 — November 21, 2012

Confirmed

After some conflicting signals, Google has confirmed the 22nd Panda update, which seems to have been just data. This update came on the heels of a larger, but unnamed update around November 19.

Panda #21 — November 5, 2012

Confirmed

Google has released its 21st Panda update, about 5 and a half weeks after Panda #20. This update would have been smaller, officially affecting 1.1% of English queries.

Layout n° 2 – 9 October 2012

Confirmed

Google announced an update to its original layout algorithm in January, which targeted pages with too many ads above the fold. It is unclear whether this was an algorithm change or a Panda-style data refresh.

Penguin No. 3 – October 5, 2012

Confirmed

After suggesting that the next Penguin update would be major, Google released a minor update to Penguin data, affecting “0.3% of queries.” Penguin’s update numbering has been restarted, similar to Panda. This was the third version of Penguin.

65 Pack August/September — October 4, 2012

Confirmed

Google has published its monthly list (twice a month?) Search results. The 65 August and September updates included 7-result SERPs, the extension of the knowledge graph, updates to how “page quality” is calculated, and changes to how local results are determined.

Panda #20 — September 27, 2012

Confirmed

Overlapping the EMD update, a fairly large update to Panda (algo + data) has been launched and officially affects 2.4% of requests. As the 3.X series started to get weird, industry sources decided to start naming Panda updates in order (it was the 20th).

Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September 27, 2012

Confirmed

Google has announced a change in the management of exact match domains (EMDs). This led to a large-scale devaluation, reducing the presence of EMD in the MozCast dataset by more than 10%. The official word is that this change affected 0.6% of queries (by volume).

Panda 3.9.2 — September 18, 2012

Confirmed

Google has launched another Panda refresh, which seems to have been just data. The ranking flow was moderate, but not at the same level as a large-scale algorithm update.

Panda 3.9.1 — August 20, 2012

Confirmed

Google has launched another update to the Panda data, but the impact seems to be quite small. With the Panda 3.0 series sold out at 3.9, the new update has been dubbed 3.9.1.

7-result SERP — August 14, 2012

Not confirmed

Google has significantly changed the Top 10 by limiting it to 7 results for many queries. Our research showed that this change span a few days and ultimately impacted about 18% of the keywords we tracked.

June/July 86 Pack – August 10, 2012

Confirmed

After a summer break, the research highlights in June and July were rolled out in a mega-post. Key updates included updates to Panda data and algorithms, an improved ranking function (?), a strengthening of the ranking for “trusted sources” and changes to site clustering.

DMCA Penalty (“Pirate”) — August 10, 2012

Confirmed

Google has announced that it will begin penalizing sites with repeated copyright infringements, likely via DMCA takedown requests. The timing was indicated as “starting next week” (8/13?).

Panda 3.9 — July 24, 2012

Confirmed

A month after Panda 3.8, Google has released a new update to Panda. The rankings fluctuated for 5-6 days, even though no day was high enough to stand out. Google says that about 1% of queries were affected.

Link Warnings — July 19, 2012

Not confirmed

In March and April, Google sent out a large number of unnatural link warnings through Google Webmaster Tools. After a complete reversal, they then announced that these new warnings might not represent a serious problem.

Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012

Confirmed

Google has launched another Panda data refresh, but it seems to be just data (no algorithm changes) and its impact is much less than that of Panda 3.7.

Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012

Confirmed

Google has launched another update to the Panda data, saying that less than 1% of queries were affected. The ranking of the fluctuation data suggests that the impact was considerably greater than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6).

May 39 — June 7, 2012 Pack

Confirmed

Google published its monthly search results, with 39 updates in May. The main changes include improvements to Penguin, better detection of link schemes, changes to title/snippet rewriting, and updates to Google News.

Penguin 1.1 (No. 2) — May 25, 2012

Confirmed

Google has launched its first targeted data update after the “Penguin” algorithm update. This confirmed that Penguin data was being treated outside of the main search index, much like Panda data.

Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012

Confirmed

In a major step toward semantic search, Google has begun rolling out “Knowledge Graph,” a display built into SERP that provides an additional object about certain people, places, and items. Expect to see “knowledge panels” appear on more and more SERPs over time. Also, Danny Sullivan’s favorite Trek is ST: Travel?!

April 52 Pack — May 4, 2012

Confirmed

Google released details of 52 updates in April, including changes related to the “Penguin” update. Other highlights include a 15% larger “basic” index, improved pagination management, and a number of site link updates.

Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012

Confirmed

Just a week after Panda 3.5, Google has launched another update to Panda data. The implications of this update were unclear, and it seemed that the impact was relatively small.

Penguin — April 24, 2012

Confirmed

After weeks of speculation about an “over-optimization penalty,” Google finally launched the “Webspam Update,” which was dubbed shortly after “Penguin.” Penguin adjusted for a number of spam factors, including keyword stuffing, and affected about 3.1% of English queries.

Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012

Confirmed

In the middle of a busy week for the Algorthim, Google has quietly launched an update to the Panda data. A combination of changes made the impact difficult to measure, but it appears to be a fairly routine update with minimal impact.

Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012

Confirmed

After a number of webmasters reported ranking reshuffles, Google confirmed that a data error had caused some domains to be wrongly treated as parked (and therefore devalued) domains. It wasn’t an intentional algorithm change.

March 50 Pack — April 3, 2012

Confirmed

Google released another batch of updates, covering 50 changes in March. These included confirming Panda 3.4, changes to anchor text “scoring,” image search updates, and changing the interpretation of local intent queries.

Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012

Confirmed

Google announced another Panda update, this time via Twitter, around the time the update launched. Their public statements estimated that Panda 3.4 had an impact on about 1.6% of the search results.

Research Quality Video — March 12, 2012

Not confirmed

It wasn’t an algorithm update, but Google released a rare preview of a search quality meeting. For people interested in the algorithm, the video provides a lot of context to Google’s process and priorities. It’s also a chance to see Amit Singhal in action.

Venice — 27 February 2012

Confirmed

As part of their monthly update, Google mentioned the codename “Venice.” This local update seemed to localize organic results more aggressively and integrate local search data more tightly. The exact date of deployment was unclear.

February 40 Pack (2) — February 27, 2012

Confirmed

Google released a second set of “search quality highlights” at the end of the month, calling for more than 40 changes in February. Notable changes include several image search updates, several freshness updates (including the phasing out of 2 old bits from the algorithm), and a Panda update.

Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012

Confirmed

Google released another post-“feed” update to Panda, which seemed relatively minor. This happened just three days after Panda’s first birthday, an unprecedented lifespan for a named update.

February 17 Pack — February 3, 2012

Confirmed

Google released another set of “search quality highlights” (17 in total). Many were about speed, freshness, and spell checking, but one major announcement was the tighter integration of Panda into the main search index.

Above the Fold Announcement — January 19, 2012

Confirmed

Google has updated its layout algorithms to devalue sites with too much ad space above the “fold.” Previously, it was suspected that a similar factor was at play in Panda. The update did not have an official name, although it was referred to as “Top Heavy” by some SEOs.

Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012

Confirmed

Google has confirmed an update to the Panda data, although it has been suggested that the algorithm hasn’t changed. It was not clear how this would fit into the “Panda Flux” scheme of more frequent data updates.

Search + Your World — January 10, 2012

Confirmed

Google has announced a sea change in personalization — aggressively pushing Google+’s social data and user profiles into the SERPs. Google has also added a new toggle button in view of disabling personalization.

January 30 Pack — January 5, 2012

Confirmed

Google announced 30 changes from the previous month, including image search landing page quality detection, more relevant sitelinks, rich snippets, and related query improvements. The line between “algo update” and “feature” is a bit more blurred.

2011 Updates

December 10 Pack — December 1, 2011

Confirmed

Google has introduced a second round of 10 updates, announcing that these releases will be released monthly. The updates included related query improvements, parked domain detection, blog search freshness, and image search freshness. The exact dates of each update were not provided.

Panda 3.1 — November 18, 2011

Confirmed

After Panda 2.5, Google entered a period of “Panda Flux” where updates started to be more frequent and relatively minor. Some industry analysts called version 3.1 11/18, even though there was no official version 3.0. For the purposes of this history, we will stop numbering Panda updates, except for very large changes.

Pack of 10 Updates — November 14, 2011

Confirmed

This one was a bit unusual. In the interest of transparency, Matt Cutts published an article with 10 recent algorithm updates. The timeline is unclear and most were small updates, but it marked a shift in the way Google communicates algorithm changes.

Coolness Update — November 3, 2011

Confirmed

Google announced that an algorithm change rewarding freshness would impact up to 35% of queries (almost 3 times the impact declared by Panda 1.0). This update mainly affected time-sensitive results, but highlighted a much stronger focus on recent content.

Query Encryption — October 18, 2011

Confirmed

Google has announced that it will encrypt search queries for privacy reasons. Unfortunately, this disrupted organic keyword SEO data, returning “(not provided)” for organic traffic. This number increased in the weeks following the launch.

Panda “Flux” (N° 8) — October 5, 2011

Confirmed

Matt Cutts tweeted, “Expect a Panda-related stream in the coming weeks” and indicated a “~2%.” Other minor updates to Panda took place on 10/3, 10/13, and 11/18.

Panda 2.5 — September 28, 2011

Confirmed

After more than a month, Google has released another Panda update. The specific details of what changed were unclear, but some sites reported large-scale losses.

516 Algo Updates— September 21, 2011

Confirmed

It wasn’t an update, but it was an incredible revelation. Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Congress that Google made 516 updates in 2010. The real shock? They tested more than 13,000 updates.

Pagination Elements — September 15, 2011

Confirmed

To solve the crawling and duplication problems created by pagination, Google introduced the link attributes rel=”next” and rel=”prev”. Google also announced that it has improved the automatic consolidation and canonicalization of “Show All” pages.

Extended sitelinks — August 16, 2011

Confirmed

After experimenting for a while, Google has officially launched extended site links, most commonly for trademark queries. At first, these were packs of 12, but Google seems to be limiting the number of extended site links to 6 shortly after the rollout.

Panda 2.4 — August 12, 2011

Confirmed

Google has rolled out Panda internationally, for both English and non-English queries, with the exception of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Google reported that this affected 6-9% of queries in affected countries.

Panda 2.3 — July 23, 2011

Confirmed

Webmasters’ discussions suggested that Google release another update. It was unclear if any new factors had been introduced or if it was just an update to Panda’s data and ranking factors.

Google+ — June 28, 2011

Confirmed

After several outages on social media, Google has launched a serious attack on Facebook with Facebook. Google+ revolved around circles for content sharing and was tightly integrated with products such as Gmail. Early adopters quickly jumped into the picture and within two weeks, Google+ reached 10 million users.

Panda 2.2 — June 21, 2011

Confirmed

Google has continued to update the sites and data impacted by Panda, and version 2.2 has been officially acknowledged. Panda’s updates took place separately from the main index and not in real-time, reminiscent of early Google Dance updates.

Schema.org — 2 June 2011

Confirmed

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have jointly announced support for a consolidated approach to structured data. They have also created a number of new “schemes”, with the apparent aim of progressing towards even richer research results.

Panda 2.1 — May 9, 2011

Confirmed

Originally dubbed “Panda 3.0,” Google appeared to roll out another round of changes. These changes were not discussed in detail by Google and appeared to be relatively minor.

Panda 2.0 — April 11, 2011

Confirmed

Google has rolled out the Panda update for all English-language queries worldwide (not limited to English-speaking countries). New signals have also been incorporated, including data on users of blocked sites through the SERPs directly or the Chrome browser.

The +1 Button — March 30, 2011

Confirmed

In response to competition from major social sites, including Facebook and Twitter, Google launched the +1 button (directly next to the results links). By clicking [+1], users have the opportunity to influence the search results in their social circle, both through organic results and paid results.

Panda/Farmer — February 23, 2011

Confirmed

A major algorithm update hit sites hard, affecting up to 12% of search results (number coming directly from Google). Panda seemed to be tackling lightweight content, content farms, sites with a high ad-to-content ratio, and a number of other quality issues. Panda lasted for at least two months and hit Europe in April 2011.

Allocation Update — January 28, 2011

Confirmed

In response to high-profile spam cases, Google has rolled out an update to help better sort content attribution and stop scrapers. According to Matt Cutts, this affected about 2% of queries. It was an obvious precursor to Panda updates.

Overstock.com Penalty — January 1, 2011

Not confirmed

In rare cases, a public outing about Overstock.com’s shady SEO practices has resulted in a very public Google penalty. JCPenney was penalised in February with a penalty for similar behaviour. Both situations changed Google’s attitude and foreshadowed the Panda update.

2010 Updates

Negative comments — December 1, 2010

Confirmed

After an exposé in the New York Times about how the e-commerce site DecorMyEyes ranked based on negative reviews, Google made a rare move and reactively adjusted the algorithm to target sites using similar tactics.

Social Signals — December 1, 2010

Not confirmed

Google and Bing have confirmed that they use social signals to determine rankings, including data from Twitter and Facebook. Matt Cutts confirmed that this is a relatively new development for Google, although many SEOs have long suspected it.

Instant Previews — November 1, 2010

Confirmed

A magnifying glass icon has appeared on Google search results, allowing search visitors to quickly preview landing pages directly from the SERPs. This marked a renewed interest from Google in the quality, design, and usability of landing pages.

Google Instant — September 1, 2010

Confirmed

By expanding Google Suggest, Google Instant is launched and displays search results as you type a query. SEOs all over the world almost spontaneously burned down, only to realize that the impact was actually quite small.

Brand Update – August 1, 2010

Not confirmed

While this isn’t a classic algorithm update, Google has started allowing the same domain to appear multiple times on a SERP. Previously, domains were limited to one or two lists or a list with indented results.

Caffeine (set up) — June 1, 2010

Confirmed

After months of testing, Google has completed the deployment of the Caffeine infrastructure. Caffeine not only increased Google’s raw speed, but it also allowed for the integration of analytics and indexing much more tightly, resulting in (according to Google) producing a 50% fresher index.

May 1 — May 1, 2010

Confirmed

In late April and early May, webmasters saw a significant drop in their long-tail traffic. Matt Cutts later confirmed that May Day was an algorithm change impacting the long tail. Sites with large-scale fine content seemed particularly affected, announcing the Panda update.

Google Places — April 1, 2010

Confirmed

Places pages were rolled out in September 2009, but they were originally just part of Google Maps. When Google Places officially launched, the Local Business Center was renamed, Google Places pages were integrated more closely with local search results, and a number of features, including new local advertising options.

2009 Updates

Real-Time Search — December 1, 2009

Confirmed

This time, the real-time search was for real Twitter feeds, Google News, newly indexed content, and a number of other sources integrated into a real-time feed on select SERPs. Sources have continued to grow over time, including social media.

Caffeine (Preview) — August 1, 2009

Not confirmed

Google has released a preview of a massive infrastructure change, designed to speed up analysis, expand the index, and integrate near real-time indexing and ranking. The timeline lasted for months, with the final rollout beginning in the U.S. in early 2010 and continuing through the summer.

Vince — February 1, 2009

Not confirmed

SEOs reported a major update that seemed to heavily favor big brands. Matt Cutts called Vince a “minor change,” but others felt he had profound long-term implications.

Rel-canonical Tag — February 1, 2009

Confirmed

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have jointly announced support for the Canonical tag, allowing webmasters to send canonicalization signals to search bots without harming visitors.

2008 Updates

Google Suggest — August 1, 2008

Confirmed

Google introduced Suggest in the list of suggested searches in a drop-down menu below the search box while visitors typed their queries. Would suggest later to power Google Instant.

Dewey— April 1, 2008

Confirmed

A large-scale reshuffle appeared to be taking place in late March and early April, but the details were unclear. Some suspected Google of pushing its own internal properties, including Google Books, but the evidence for this was limited.

2007 Updates

Buffy— June 1, 2007

Not confirmed

In honor of Vanessa Fox leaving Google, the update “Buffy” has been named. No one was really sure what was going on, and Matt Cutts suggested that Buffy was simply an accumulation of smaller changes.

Universal Search — May 1, 2007

Confirmed

While this isn’t your usual algorithm update, Google has integrated traditional search results with News, Video, Images, Local, and other sectors, drastically changing their format. The old SERP consisting of 10 companies was officially dead. Long live the old SERP of 10 registrations.

2006 Updates

False Alarm — December 1, 2006

Not confirmed

There was an update in December, as well as reports of significant changes in the rankings in November, but Google didn’t report any major changes.

Supplementary Update — November 1, 2006

Not confirmed

Throughout 2006, Google appeared to make changes to the supplemental index and the treatment of filtered pages. They claimed at the end of 2006 that the surcharge was not a penalty (although it was sometimes the case).

2005 Updates

Big Daddy — December 1, 2005

Confirmed

Technically, Big Daddy was an infrastructure update (like the most recent “Caffeine”), which spanned a few months and ended in March 2006. Big Daddy changed the way Google handled URL canonicalization and redirects (301/302). and other technical issues.

Google Local/ Maps — October 1, 2005

Confirmed

After launching the Local Business Center in March 2005 and encouraging businesses to update their information, Google merged its map data into the AML, which would eventually lead to many changes in local SEO.

Jagger — October 1, 2005

Confirmed

Google has released a series of updates, mainly targeting low-quality links, including reciprocal links, link farms, and paid links. Jagger was deployed in at least three stages, from about September to November 2005, with the greatest impact recorded in October.

Gilligan — September 1, 2005

Not confirmed

Webmasters, also known as “fakes,” have seen changes (likely in the works), but Google has claimed that no major updates to its algorithm have taken place. Matt Cutts wrote a blog post explaining that Google (at the time) updated index data daily, but that Toolbar PR and some other metrics only did so every 3 months.

XML Sitemaps — June 1, 2005

Confirmed

Google allowed webmasters to submit XML sitemaps via Webmaster Tools, bypassing regular HTML sitemaps and giving SEOs a direct (albeit minor) influence on crawling and indexing.

Custom Search — June 1, 2005

Confirmed

Unlike previous attempts at personalization, which required custom settings and profiles, the rollout of custom search in 2005 was leveraged directly in users’ search history to automatically adjust results. Although the impact was small at first, Google would continue to use search history for many apps.

Bourbon — May 1, 2005

Confirmed

“GoogleGuy” (presumably Matt Cutts) announced that Google was rolling out “something like 3.5 changes to search quality.” No one knew exactly what half of the change was, but Webmaster World members assumed that Bourbon was changing the way duplicate content and non-canonical URLs (www vs. non-www) were handled.

Allegra — February 1, 2005

Not confirmed

Webmasters witnessed changes in rankings, but the details of the update were unclear. Some believed that Allegra had affected the “sandbox” while others believed that LSI had been modified. In addition, some assumed that Google was starting to penalize suspicious links.

Nofollow — January 1, 2005

Confirmed

To combat spam and control the quality of outbound links, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are collectively introducing the “nofollow” attribute. Nofollow helps clean up links, including unsolicited blog comments. While this is not a traditional algorithm update, this change is gradually having a significant impact on the link graph.

2004 Updates

Google’s IPO — August 1, 2004

Not confirmed

While this is obviously not an algorithm update, it is a major event in Google’s history: Google sold 19 million shares, raised $1.67 billion in capital, and set a market value of more than $20 billion. By January 2005, Google’s stock prices had more than doubled.

Brandy — February 1, 2004

Confirmed

Google has implemented various changes, including a massive expansion of the index, latent semantic indexing (LSI), increased attention to anchor text relevance, and the concept of “neighbor” linking. LSI has developed Google’s ability to understand synonyms and has taken keyword analysis to the next level.

Austin — January 1, 2004

Not confirmed

What Florida missed, Austin came to clean up. Google continued to crack down on deceptive on-page tactics, including invisible text and meta tag stuffing. Some assumed that Google was bringing the “Hilltop” algorithm into play and was starting to take the relevance of the page seriously.

2003 Updates

Florida — November 1, 2003

Confirmed

It was the update that put the updates (and probably the SEO industry) on the map. Many sites lost their rankings, and business owners were furious. Florida sounded the death knell for the low-value SEO tactics of the late ’90s, such as keyword stuffing, and made the game much more interesting.

Supplementary Index — 1 September 2003

Not confirmed

To index more documents without sacrificing performance, Google has split some results into the “complementary” index. The perils of getting additional results became an extremely controversial SEO topic, until the index was later reinstated.

Fritz — July 1, 2003

Confirmed

The monthly “Google Dance” has finally ended with the update of “Fritz”. Instead of completely overhauling the index every month or so, Google has opted for an incremental approach. The index was now changing every day.

Esmeralda — June 1, 2003

Not confirmed

This is the last of Google’s regular monthly updates, as a more continuous update process begins to emerge. “Google Dance” has been replaced by “Everflux”. Esmerelda has probably announced major infrastructure changes at Google.

Dominic — May 1, 2003

Not confirmed

While many changes were seen in May, Dominic’s exact nature was unclear. Google’s “Freshbot” and “Deepcrawler” bots have scoured the web, and many sites have reported bounces. The way Google counted or reported backlinks seemed to change dramatically.

Cassandra — April 1, 2003

Not confirmed

Google has tackled some fundamental issues related to link quality, such as massive links from co-owned domains. Cassandra was also very critical of the text and hidden links.

Boston – February 1, 2003

Confirmed

Announced at SES Boston, it was the first update named Google. Originally, Google was aiming for a major monthly update. The first updates consisted of a combination of algorithm changes and major index updates (“Google Dance”). As updates became more frequent, the monthly idea quickly died.

2002 Updates

1st documented update — September 1, 2002

Not confirmed

Prior to “Boston” (the first named update), there had been a major reshuffle in the fall of 2002. The details are unclear, but it seemed to be more than the monthly update to Google Dance and PageRank. As a Google webmaster put it: “they move the toilet halfway”.

2000 Updates

Google Toolbar — December 1, 2000

Confirmed

Guaranteeing SEO arguments for years to come, Google has launched its navigation toolbar, and with it, Toolbar PageRank (TBPR). As soon as webmasters started watching TBPR, Google Dance started.

Based on the MOZ article

 

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