9 years of Google algorithm updates

A visual guide to Google search ranking volatility by Dr. Peter J. Meyers. Hotter days represent more movement on page one of the Google search results.

Google Algorithm Lined
MWEB 1448 Graphic Thermometer Live Text

  • Panda 4.0 / #26 | May 21, 2014 | 95°
  • Quality Update | May 3rd, 2015 | 92°
  • Penguin 4.0 / R-T | Sept 27, 2016 | 113°
  • Unknown Update | May 17, 2017 | 114°
  • Mobile-First Index | March 26, 2018 | 104°
  • Medic / Core Update | August 1, 2018 | 114°
  • March 2019 Core Update | March 12, 2019 | 101°
  • COVID 19 Pandemic | March 11, 2019 | 104°
  • Data Center Fire | August 9th, 2022 | 124°

2023 Updates

2022 Updates

E-E-A-T QRG Update  —  December 15, 2022
Unconfirmed

Google announced an extra 'E' in E-A-T, stressing the importance of first-hand Experience. It's unclear when and how this impacted the algorithm, but it does represent a significant change to Google's Quality Rater Guidelines that will likely drive future algorithm updates.

September 2022 Core Update  —  September 12, 2022
Confirmed

The second Core Update of 2022 rolled out on the heels of the Helpful Content Update, complicating any attempts at analysis. The update officially lasted until September 26th, but ranking flux spiked early, with MozCast measuring 94.0° on September 12th.

Helpful Content Update  —  August 25, 2022
Confirmed

The Helpful Content Update aimed to reward "people-first" content and devalue content written primarily for SEO. It officially rolled out over two weeks (wrapping up on September 9th), with an unusual pre-announcement just one week in advance. There were no clear signs of broad impact.

Unnamed Update  —  July 8, 2022
Unconfirmed

MozCast measured high volatility on both July 8th (103.9°) and July 6th (101.9°). While some SEOs and rank tracking tools observed major changes during this time period, Google did not confirm an update, and no clear details emerged.

Unnamed Update  —  June 27, 2022
Unconfirmed

MozCast spiked at 109.0° on June 27th, measuring unusually high ranking flux even for a historically high-activity summer. Google provided no details nor confirmation, and the nature of the update remains unclear.

March 2022 Product Reviews Update  —  March 23, 2022
Confirmed

Google confirmed a significant product reviews update and changed the naming convention to match the Core Updates. The update officially took 19 days to roll out, starting on March 23rd, and built on previous product review updates to identify high quality product reviews.

Unnamed Update  —  March 18, 2022
Unconfirmed

Multiple SERP trackers picked up high flux around March 18-19, with MozCast peaking at 101.1°F on March 18th. No update was officially confirmed, and Danny Sullivan of Google tweeted that "I did check, no one knows of any broad, major update."

Unnamed Update  —  January 10, 2022
Unconfirmed

During a period of relatively high volatility, MozCast recorded a temperature spike of 102.1°F on January 10th. No Google update was confirmed, but industry chatter picked up ranking changes on January 11th.

2021 Updates

Unnamed Update  —  December 17, 2021
Unconfirmed

MozCast measured very high volatility, peaking at 105.0°F, just two days after recording a temperature of 101.3°F. While Google did not confirm these specific dates, both events occurred during the December 1-21 rollout of the Product Reviews Update.

Top Stories Redesign  —  December 6, 2021
Confirmed

While not a traditional algorithm update, Google released a major overhaul to the design of Top Stories, splitting it into two columns on desktop and (in many cases) dramatically increasing the amount of SERP real estate occupied by news results.

Product Reviews Update  —  December 1, 2021
Confirmed

On December 1, Google announced another update to reward high-quality product reviews (and a refresh of the April 2021 update). This update reportedly rolled out over three weeks, and MozCast recorded multiple days of high SERP volatility in December.

Featured Snippet Recovery  —  March 12, 2021
Unconfirmed

Three weeks after roughly 40% of Featured Snippets mysteriously disappeared from SERPs, they just-as-mysteriously returned to their previous levels. Google did not provide confirmation nor an explanation.

2020 Updates

Unnamed Update  —  December 17, 2020
Unconfirmed

One day after Google announced the end of the December Core Update rollout, MozCast measured moderately-high rankings flux at 99°F. It was unclear whether this was the last hurrah of that rollout or a separate, medium-sized algorithm update.

December 2020 Core Update  —  December 3, 2020
Confirmed

Google announced a Core Update that appeared to roll out quickly, with the bulk of the impact hitting on December 3rd. MozCast hit 112°F, on par with the March 2020 Core Update and August 2018 "Medic" Update. Some sites reported reversals a few days later, but this seems to have been limited.

Indexing Bug, Pt. 2  —  October 12, 2020
Confirmed

Google claimed that the bulk of the indexing and canonicalization bug(s) had been fixed by around October 14th. MozCast measured a drop in indexed pages and a temperature of 104°F around October 12th, with temperatures in the 90s lasting for a few days after.

COVID-19 Pandemic  —  March 11, 2020
Unconfirmed

While not an algorithm update, per se, COVID-19 dramatically shifted consumer search behavior. The WHO pandemic declaration on March 11th seemed to be a pivotal turning point. In March on MozCast, 16 out of 31 days topped 90°F, and rankings were in high flux well into April and May.

2019 Updates

International BERT Rollout  —  December 9, 2019
Confirmed

Google confirmed that the BERT natural language processing algorithm was rolling out internationally, in 70 languages. This announcement came after speculation from the SEO community, and the exact timing of the roll-out is unclear.

Indexing Bugs  —  May 23, 2019
Confirmed

Two days in a row, Google confirmed indexing bugs. The first bug reportedly was preventing new content from being properly indexed. MozCast confirmed unusually high SERP flux from May 23-25 (peaking on the 23rd), but it's unclear if this was directly related to the bugs.

2018 Updates

Unnamed Update  —  September 10, 2018
Unconfirmed

MozCast temperatures hit 107.6°F, and webmaster chatter around an update spiked, but Google would not confirm any significant changes.

"Medic" Core Update  —  August 1, 2018
Confirmed

Google confirmed a "broad core algorithm update," with wide reports of massive impact. It rolled out over the period of about a week, but peaked on August 1-2. This update seemed to disproportionately affect sites in the health and wellness vertical, although large-scale impact was seen in all verticals.

Unnamed Update  —  May 23, 2018
Unconfirmed

Algorithm tracking tools and webmaster chatter showed heavy activity, but Google did not confirm an update. MozCast showed very high temperatures over a 3-day period, peaking on May 23.

Mobile-First Index Rollout  —  March 26, 2018
Confirmed

Google announced that the mobile-first index was finally "rolling out." Since the index has been in testing for many months, and Google has suggested they are migrating sites gradually, it's unclear how much impact this specific roll-out had on the overall index. Webmaster should begin to see notifications within Google Search Console.

"Brackets" Core Update  —  March 8, 2018
Confirmed

Google confirmed a "core" update on March 7th, but volatility spiked as early as March 4th, with a second spike on March 8th, and continued for almost two weeks. This may have been multiple updates or one prolonged, rolling update. The "Brackets" name was coined by Glenn Gabe; no details were provided by Google.

Unnamed Update  —  February 20, 2018
Unconfirmed

Rankings showed a spike in volatility (across a number of tools) around February 20th, which quickly settled down, sometimes signalling a targeted algorithm update. Google did not confirm any update in this time period.

2017 Updates

"Maccabees" Update  —  December 14, 2017
Unconfirmed

Chatter and several tools showed ranking volatility around December 14th. Barry Schwartz named this the "Maccabees" update, but Google would only confirm that several small updates had happened in the general timeline. Pre-holiday updates tend to get more attention (and are generally rarer) due to their disruptive effect on e-commerce.

Snippet Length Increase  —  November 30, 2017
Confirmed

After testing longer search snippets for over two years, Google increased them across a large number of results. This led us to adopt a new Meta Description limit -- up to 300 characters from the previous 155 (almost doubling). Google confirmed an update to how snippets are handled, but didn't provide details.

Unnamed Update  —  September 27, 2017
Unconfirmed

Algorithm trackers (including MozCast) and webmaster chatter spotted increasing flux starting around September 25th, which seemed to spike on the 27th, after a period of relative calm. No update was officially confirmed.

Google Tops 50% HTTPS  —  April 16, 2017
Unconfirmed

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

Intrusive Interstitial Penalty  —  January 10, 2017
Confirmed

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

2016 Updates

Unnamed Update  —  December 14, 2016
Unconfirmed

Multiple Google trackers showed massive flux around December 14-15, including a rare MozCast temperature of 109°F. Webmaster chatter was heavy as well, but Google did not confirm an update.

Unnamed Update  —  November 10, 2016
Unconfirmed

MozCast detected a major (106°) spike on November 10th and another on the 18th. Industry chatter was high during both periods, with some suggesting that the second spike was a reversal of the first update. Google has not confirmed either event. Many people reported bad dates in SERPs during the same time period, but it's unclear whether this was causal or just a coincidence.

Penguin 4.0, Phase 2  —  October 6, 2016
Unconfirmed

The second phase of Penguin 4.0 was the reversal of all previous Penguin penalties. This seemed to happen after the new code rolled out, and may have taken as long as two weeks. Post-Penguin activity had one final peak on October 6th (116°), but it is unclear whether this was Penguin or a new update. Algorithm temperatures finally started to drop after October 6th.

Penguin 4.0, Phase 1  —  September 27, 2016
Confirmed

The first phase of Penguin 4.0, which probably launched around September 22-23, was the rollout of the new, "gentler" Penguin algorithm, which devalues bad links instead of penalizing sites. The exact timeline is unconfirmed, but we believe this rollout took at least a few days to fully update, and may have corresponded to an algorithm temperature spike (113°) on September 27th.

Penguin 4.0 Announcement  —  September 23, 2016
Confirmed

After almost two years of waiting, Google finally announced a major Penguin update. They suggested the new Penguin is now real-time and baked into the "core" algorithm. Initial impact assessments were small, but it was later revealed that the Penguin 4.0 rollout was unusually long and multi-phase (see September 27th and October 6th).

Image/Universal Drop  —  September 13, 2016
Unconfirmed

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

Unnamed Update  —  May 10, 2016
Unconfirmed

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

2015 Updates

Mobile Update AKA "Mobilegeddon"  —  April 22, 2015
Confirmed

In a rare move, Google pre-announced an algorithm update, telling us that mobile rankings would differ for mobile-friendly sites starting on April 21st. The impact of this update was, in the short-term, much smaller than expected, and our data showed that algorithm flux peaked on April 22nd.

Finding more mobile-friendly search results (Google)

7 Days After Mobilegeddon: How Far Did the Sky Fall? (Moz)

Unnamed Update  —  February 4, 2015
Unconfirmed

Multiple SERP-trackers and many webmasters reported major flux in Google SERPs. Speculation ranged from an e-commerce focused update to a mobile usability update. Google did not officially confirm an update.

Significant Google Search Algorithm Update Yesterday (SER)

Google Brand-eCommerce “Update” causing fluctuations (Searchmetrics)

2014 Updates

Penguin Everflux  —  December 10, 2014
Confirmed

A Google representative said that Penguin had shifted to continuous updates, moving away from infrequent, major updates. While the exact timeline was unclear, this claim seemed to fit ongoing flux after Penguin 3.0 (including unconfirmed claims of a Penguin 3.1).

Penguin 3.0  —  October 17, 2014
Confirmed

More than a year after the previous Penguin update (2.1), Google launched a Penguin refresh. This update appeared to be smaller than expected (<1% of US/English queries affected) and was probably data-only (not a new Penguin algorithm). The timing of the update was unclear, especially internationally, and Google claimed it was spread out over "weeks".

Payday Loan 3.0  —  June 12, 2014
Confirmed

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

2013 Updates

Hummingbird  —  August 20, 2013
Confirmed

Announced on September 26th, Google suggested that the "Hummingbird" update rolled out about a month earlier. Our best guess ties it to a MozCast spike on August 20th and many reports of flux from August 20-22. Hummingbird has been compared to Caffeine, and seems to be a core algorithm update that may power changes to semantic search and the Knowledge Graph for months to come.

Knowledge Graph Expansion  —  July 19, 2013
Unconfirmed

Seemingly overnight, queries with Knowledge Graph (KG) entries expanded by more than half (+50.4%) across the MozCast data set, with more than a quarter of all searches showing some kind of KG entry.

Panda Recovery  —  July 18, 2013
Confirmed

Google confirmed a Panda update, but it was unclear whether this was one of the 10-day rolling updates or something new. The implication was that this was algorithmic and may have "softened" some previous Panda penalties.

Multi-Week Update  —  June 27, 2013
Confirmed

Google's Matt Cutts tweeted a reply suggesting a "multi-week" algorithm update between roughly June 12th and "the week after July 4th". The nature of the update was unclear, but there was massive rankings volatility during that time period, peaking on June 27th (according to MozCast data). It appears that Google may have been testing some changes that were later rolled back.

2012 Updates

Panda #23  —  December 21, 2012
Confirmed

Right before the Christmas holiday, Google rolled out another Panda update. They officially called it a "refresh", impacting 1.3% of English queries. This was a slightly higher impact than Pandas #21 and #22.

August/September 65-Pack  —  October 4, 2012
Confirmed

Google published their monthly (bi-monthly?) list of search highlights. The 65 updates for August and September included 7-result SERPs, Knowledge Graph expansion, updates to how "page quality" is calculated, and changes to how local results are determined.

Panda 3.9 (#17)  —  July 24, 2012
Confirmed

A month after Panda 3.8, Google rolled out a new Panda update. Rankings fluctuated for 5-6 days, although no single day was high enough to stand out. Google claimed ~1% of queries were impacted.

Penguin 1.1 (#2)  —  May 25, 2012
Confirmed

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

Panda 3.6 (#14)  —  April 27, 2012
Confirmed

Barely a week after Panda 3.5, Google rolled out yet another Panda data update. 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 rolled out the "Webspam Update", which was soon after dubbed "Penguin." Penguin adjusted a number of spam factors, including keyword stuffing, and impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.

Panda 3.5 (#13)  —  April 19, 2012
Confirmed

In the middle of a busy week for the algorthim, Google quietly rolled out a Panda data update. A mix of changes made the impact difficult to measure, but this appears to have been a fairly routine update with minimal impact.

Panda 3.4 (#12)  —  March 23, 2012
Confirmed

Google announced another Panda update, this time via Twitter as the update was rolling out. Their public statements estimated that Panda 3.4 impacted about 1.6% of search results.

Search Quality Video  —  March 12, 2012
Unconfirmed

This wasn't an algorithm update, but Google published a rare peek into a search quality meeting. For anyone interested in the algorithm, the video provides a lot of context to both Google's process and their priorities. It's also a chance to see Amit Singhal in action.

February 40-Pack (2)  —  February 27, 2012
Confirmed

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

2011 Updates

Panda 3.1 (#9)  —  November 18, 2011
Confirmed

After Panda 2.5, Google entered a period of "Panda Flux" where updates started to happen more frequently and were relatively minor. Some industry analysts called the 11/18 update 3.1, even though there was no official 3.0. For the purposes of this history, we will discontinue numbering Panda updates except for very high-impact changes.

516 Algo Updates  —  September 21, 2011
Confirmed

This wasn't an update, but it was an amazing revelation. Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Congress that Google made 516 updates in 2010. The real shocker? They tested over 13,000 updates.

Google+  —  June 28, 2011
Confirmed

After a number of social media failures, Google launched a serious attack on Facebook with Google+. Google+ revolved around circles for sharing content, and was tightly integrated into products like Gmail. Early adopters were quick to jump on board, and within 2 weeks Google+ reached 10M users.

Panda/Farmer  —  February 23, 2011
Confirmed

A major algorithm update hit sites hard, affecting up to 12% of search results (a number that came directly from Google). Panda seemed to crack down on thin content, content farms, sites with high ad-to-content ratios, and a number of other quality issues. Panda rolled out over at least a couple of months, hitting Europe in April 2011.

2010 Updates

Instant Previews  —  November 1, 2010
Confirmed

A magnifying glass icon appeared on Google search results, allowing search visitors to quickly view a preview of landing pages directly from SERPs. This signaled a renewed focus for Google on landing page quality, design, and usability.

Brand Update  —  August 1, 2010
Unconfirmed

Although not a traditional algorithm update, Google started allowing the same domain to appear multiple times on a SERP. Previously, domains were limited to 1-2 listings, or 1 listing with indented results.

Google Places  —  April 1, 2010
Confirmed

Although "Places" pages were rolled out in September of 2009, they were originally only a part of Google Maps. The official launch of Google Places re-branded the Local Business Center, integrated Places pages more closely with local search results, and added a number of features, including new local advertising options.

2009 Updates

Real-time Search  —  December 1, 2009
Confirmed

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

2008 Updates

Google Suggest  —  August 1, 2008
Confirmed

In a major change to their logo-and-a-box home-page Google introduced Suggest, displaying suggested searches in a dropdown below the search box as visitors typed their queries. Suggest would later go on to power Google Instant.

2007 Updates

Universal Search  —  May 1, 2007
Confirmed

While not your typical algorithm update, Google integrated traditional search results with News, Video, Images, Local, and other verticals, dramatically changing their format. The old 10-listing SERP was officially dead. Long live the old 10-listing SERP.

2006 Updates

Supplemental Update  —  November 1, 2006
Unconfirmed

Throughout 2006, Google seemed to make changes to the supplemental index and how filtered pages were treated. They claimed in late 2006 that supplemental was not a penalty (even if it sometimes felt that way).

2005 Updates

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 Maps data into the LBC, in a move that would eventually drive a number of changes in local SEO.

XML Sitemaps  —  June 1, 2005
Confirmed

Google allowed webmasters to submit XML sitemaps via Webmaster Tools, bypassing traditional HTML sitemaps, and giving SEOs direct (albeit minor) influence over crawling and indexation.

Bourbon  —  May 1, 2005
Confirmed

"GoogleGuy" (likely Matt Cutts) announced that Google was rolling out "something like 3.5 changes in search quality." No one was sure what 0.5 of a change was, but Webmaster World members speculated that Bourbon changed how duplicate content and non-canonical (www vs. non-www) URLs were treated.

Allegra  —  February 1, 2005
Unconfirmed

Webmasters witnessed ranking changes, but the specifics of the update were unclear. Some thought Allegra affected the "sandbox" while others believed that LSI had been tweaked. Additionally, some speculated that Google was beginning to penalize suspicious links.

Nofollow  —  January 1, 2005
Confirmed

To combat spam and control outbound link quality, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft collectively introduce the "nofollow" attribute. Nofollow helps clean up unvouched for links, including spammy blog comments. While not a traditional algorithm update, this change gradually has a significant impact on the link graph.

2004 Updates

Google IPO  —  August 1, 2004
Unconfirmed

Although obviously not an algorithm update, a major event in Google's history - Google sold 19M shares, raised $1.67B in capital, and set their market value at over $20B. By January 2005, Google share prices more than doubled.

2003 Updates

Florida  —  November 1, 2003
Confirmed

This was the update that put updates (and probably the SEO industry) on the map. Many sites lost ranking, and business owners were furious. Florida sounded the death knell for low-value late 90s SEO tactics, like keyword stuffing, and made the game a whole lot more interesting.

Supplemental Index  —  September 1, 2003
Unconfirmed

In order to index more documents without sacrificing performance, Google split off some results into the "supplemental" index. The perils of having results go supplemental became a hotly debated SEO topic, until the index was later reintegrated.

Esmeralda  —  June 1, 2003
Unconfirmed

This marked the last of the regular monthly Google updates, as a more continuous update process began to emerge. The "Google Dance" was replaced with "Everflux". Esmerelda probably heralded some major infrastructure changes at Google.

Dominic  —  May 1, 2003
Unconfirmed

While many changes were observed in May, the exact nature of Dominic was unclear. Google bots "Freshbot" and "Deepcrawler" scoured the web, and many sites reported bounces. The way Google counted or reported backlinks seemed to change dramatically.

Cassandra  —  April 1, 2003
Unconfirmed

Google cracked down on some basic link-quality issues, such as massive linking from co-owned domains. Cassandra also came down hard on hidden text and hidden links.

Boston  —  February 1, 2003
Confirmed

Announced at SES Boston, this was the first named Google update. Originally, Google aimed at a major monthly update, so the first few updates were a combination of algorithm changes and major index refreshes (the so-called "Google Dance"). As updates became more frequent, the monthly idea quickly died.

2000 Updates

Google Toolbar  —  December 1, 2000
Confirmed

Guaranteeing SEO arguments for years to come, Google launched their browser toolbar, and with it, Toolbar PageRank (TBPR). As soon as webmasters started watching TBPR, the Google Dance began.

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