author: sinjib kr Das
What is Google Algorithms?
Google’s algorithms are an intricate system that retrieves information from its search index and immediately delivers the most effective results possible for your query. The search engine employs an array of algorithms and various rank factors to provide websites that are ranked according to relevance in its search results webpages ( SERPs).
In the beginning, Google only made a few updates to its algorithm. Nowadays, Google makes thousands of adjustments each year.
Many of these updates are so small that they’re largely ignored. On occasion, the search engine makes significant algorithmic changes that dramatically affect the SERPs, such as:
- Fred
- Intrusive Interstitial Update
- Mobile geddon
- Rank Brain
- Panda
- Penguin
- Hummingbird
- Pigeon
- Payday
- EMD (Exact Match Domain)
- Page Layout Algorithm
Below, we’ve compiled the complete listing of Google algorithm updates, launches and refreshes that have been released over time along with hyperlinks to useful websites for SEO professionals looking to know more about the nuances of each change.
All Updates
March 23 2022
March 2022 Update of the Product Algorithm
Google announced via its blog on Search Central an improvement to its product review rankings, which will allow the company to recognize quality reviews. The update is expected to take about a week to be completed.
Learn more about Google’s efforts to offer higher-quality product reviews for search customers through The Keyword and also get Google’s suggestions about how best to create quality product reviews.
February 22 2022
Page Experience Update
Google has announced via the Twitter feed that the update to page experience is in the process of rolling out to desktop search. It is expected to be complete by March 2022. Google provides developers with more details regarding the update to the page experience through Google Search Central.
1 December 2021
Dec. 2021 Product Review Update
Google announced on the Google Search Central Twitter Twitter account it will be rolling out the 2021 December Product Review Update began rolling out to English pages on the web today and will take about three weeks to finish. Google shared the URL for a blog article about updates to product reviews and your site to get more information.
17 November 2021
Broad Core Update
Google Search Central announced via Twitter that a large core update was scheduled to be released the following day. They advised webmasters to refer to their information on what website owners must be aware of the latest updates to their core algorithm that was last updated in August of this year.
November 3 November 3, 2021
Google Spam Update
According to a Tweet of Google Search Liaison, a spam update was launched between November 3 and 11th, 2021 as a part of their ongoing efforts to improve the search results. The announcement suggested that webmasters continue to follow the Webmaster Guidelines.
June 26 2021
Google Link Spam Algorithm Update
Google has announced the release of an update to its algorithm that aimed at identifying and removing link-based spamming was about to be released. Google advised that websites that engage in link spam strategies could be affected by ranking changes, with guest, sponsored and affiliate content the most likely to be affected. Google stated that the update will be out for “at least” two weeks, and it will be affecting several languages.
July 12 2021
The Core Update for July 2021 is Completed
Google Search Liaison confirmed via Twitter that the Core Update rollout was finished on July 12th. The details of the rollout were not disclosed.
July 1st 2021
June 2021 Update on the Core
Google Search Liaison announced via Twitter that the Core Update for July 2021 was in the process of rolling out and could take between one and two weeks for completion. Google’s instructions regarding core updates are available on the Google Search Central Blog.
June 28, 2021
Spam Update Part 2.
Google Search Liaison announced via Twitter that the second stage of their spam update started on June 28th and is expected to be completed at the exact same time. The original announcement was a reference to a blog post posted on the Google Search Central Blog updated in April 2021 about the way Google has been fighting Search spam in 2020.
June 23, 2021
June 2021 Spam Update
Google’s Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter an algorithm change aimed to combat spam was being rolled out to results from searches. The release of the update is expected to be completed by the end of the day. He also said that a third spam update would be coming within of a week. Google provided no specifics about the content of this update. intended to do.
June 15, 2021
Page Update on Experience
Google announces that the long-awaited Page Experience update has started rolling out. Websites shouldn’t expect to experience dramatic changes due to the update Google declares, while any unexpected spikes or drops will be controlled through the gradual rollout procedure. The rollout is expected to be complete before the end of August 2021.
June 10, 2021
Protecting Known Victims
On June 10, Pandu Nayak,
Google Associate and Vice President for Search Google Fellow and Vice President of Search, posted a blog post on The Keyword website. In the post, he spoke about Google’s efforts to improve the algorithm to degrade websites that “employ the use of abusive removal methods” or “predatory techniques.” The blogger also shared the link users could submit complaints about online harassment.
June 2, 2021
Wide Core Algorithm Update
Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter that a large central algorithm overhaul was slated to be launched. Sullivan added that certain improvements were not fully ready for the update, and the bits that weren’t yet ready will be released in a second, more general core algorithm update which is to be released in the month of July.
8 April 2021
Review of Product Update
This latest algorithmic upgrade was developed to encourage “product reviews that are based on extensive research rather than a superficial content that just summarizes an assortment of items.” In the statement, Google also shared nine questions you should consider when writing and publishing reviews of products.
February 10 2021
Passage Ranking
The Google Public Liaison for Search, Danny Sullivan, announced via Twitter that Passage Ranking was launched officially for queries that are in the English language from the United States. As per Google: “This change doesn’t mean that we’re indexed individual sections independently of pages. We’re still indexing web pages and looking at information about pages in general to rank them. We can now take into account passages from pages as an additional ranking factor. ….”
December 3 3, 2020
November 2020 Update on the Core
Google confirms a key algorithm update that, the core update for December 2020. The update will be released on December 3 in 2020. This is the third major algorithm update for the year calendar. It’s long years have passed from the previous core update, when compared to the average amount of time between these updates.
Find out more information about this update below.
May 4 April, 2020
The May 2020 Core Update
Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan made an announcement via Twitter the fact that Google will be unveiling a large algorithm update. Within 90 minutes the liaison declared that the update was in progress and could take anywhere from a week to a month to fully roll out.
January 22 January 22, 2020
Snippets with a Featured Design De-duplication
Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter that websites that are featured snippets are no longer re-used in normal Page 1 organic listing. The change was affecting the majority of pages in search results, all over the world.
January 13 January 13, 2020
Jan 2020 Update on the Core
Google’s Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that an update to the core algorithm, in general, was set to go live. Google also provided the same information as all the other recently released updates to its core algorithm.
9th December 2019
BERT (Worldwide)
Google’s Danny Sullivan tweeted that BERT began its global launch, which includes the following languages in its rollout: 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 and 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.
October 25 2019, 2019
BERT Update
Google launched the BERT update, calling it the biggest update to Google search in the last five years. Google utilizes BERT models to comprehend queries from search engines. Google declared that the change had an impact on both rankings for search and featured snippets, as well as BERT (which means Bidirectional Encoder Representations of Transformers), can be utilized for 10% of U.S. English searches.
September 24 April, 2019
Large Core Algorithm Update
Google’s Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that a major update to the core algorithm would be out within a couple of hours and that it would take several days before the rollout. Google’s guidelines were similar to what it was for other recent updates to core algorithms.
June 2, 2019
The June 2019 Core Update
On June 2nd, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted that Google was releasing an update to its general algorithm upgrade on the 3rd of June. The following morning, Google announced that the update was available and was scheduled to be released across its data centres over the next few days. Similar to any major update to the core algorithm, Google tells us there is nothing specific that needs to be fixed since a core update covers many factors.
March 12 March 12, 2019
The March Core Update (a.k.a. Florida 2)
The Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter the announcement of a broad global algorithm update. SEJ confirmed that this update is crucial and was one of the largest Google updates in recent years. Sullivan has once more recommended following the guidelines it issued after the March 9th update for 2018.
February 13 February 13, 2019
Valentine’s Day Update
Industry chatter and algorithm trackers suggested that an unknown update occurred prior to and on this date. But, in contrast to other updates, only positive changes in rankings were reported.
October 31st October 31, 2018
Unconfirmed Halloween Update
Some webmasters reported changes starting around Halloween, perhaps indicating an (unconfirmed) Google update. There was no evidence of an important update in this case. Most likely, the reason for the chatter was a spillover from the general algorithm update and Google expanding it’s utilization in the neural-matching algorithm..
September 27 September 27, 2018
A “Small” Update
On the 27th of September ( Google’s 20th birthday) Many within the SEO community noticed notable spikes and decreases in traffic, suggesting that some kind of update was in progress. A few of the websites affected by the broad algorithm update have reportedly recovered. Google’s search liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter on the 29th of September that a “smaller” update was taking the place of an earlier update (but there was no large key algorithm change).
August 1st August 1, 2018
Large Core Algorithm Update
Google announced through Twitter three times a year, the release of an extensive update to its core algorithm. When it did, search liaison Danny Sullivan recommended following the instructions it gave after the March 9th, 2018 update. The update was described as “Medic” according to some within the field, despite the fact that Google stated that it was a general rank update and didn’t target specific medical websites.
April 16 on, 2018.
Wide Core Algorithm Update
Google announced on Twitter the launch of a new general algorithm update and also said that it was comparable with the 9 March updated in 2018, and dealt with the relevance of content.
March 9 March 9, 2018
Wide Core Algorithm Update
On March 12 Google announced via twitter that the “broad fundamental algorithm change” was released over the past week. Although Google provided no specifics, Google said the changes were intended to “benefit pages that had been under-rewarded” and advised users to “continue creating excellent content.”
December 12 December 12, 2017
Maccabees Update
A few members of the search community complained that their websites were affected by the update between December 12-14. Google acknowledged that there were minor tweaks to the algorithm’s core algorithm over the period, but did not elaborate on the significance of the time of change.
September 8 on, 2017.
Fall Flux
Discussions in the industry and tracking tools suggest that some type of (still not confirmed) Google update may have taken place on the date. Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, also detected some notable Google changes that affected search results and traffic beginning September 8. Then came further volatility and fluctuations on September 18, 25 and 29 and also on October 4 8 and 12.
August 19 17
Quality Update
SEO ranking tools and Webmasters observed a slight fluctuation on August 19-20. There are signs suggesting this might have been an additional (unconfirmed) Google quality update. The ranking casualties included: categories pages, pages that have high-quality or thin content, aggressive advertisements as well as other negative user experience factors as per an analysis done by Glenn Gabe, president of GSQi. There was belief that Google started testing the algorithm on August 14 , as the pages that were affected (either positive or negatively) at that time were further affected on the 19th of August.
July 9 the 9th of July, 2017.
Quality Update
SEO ranking tools identified some slight fluctuations on July 9 and could be another (unconfirmed) Google quality update.
June 25, 2017
June 25 Update
Many SEO tracking tools identified an important, yet not confirmed, Google update on the date. A review revealed that the update caused the largest changes in the rankings of pages in the range of 6-10. While it affected a wide range of areas, the food and beverage industry was affected the most.
May 17 2017, 2017
Quality Update
From May 17 to approximately a week SEO monitoring tools revealed a great deal of SERP fluctuation. Although the impact isn’t too significant the websites affected by this update were likely to experience issues with deceitful or aggressive advertisements, UX issues, and poor quality or thin content.
March 7 2017, 2017
Fred
Google’s Gary Ill-yes jokingly referred to this change in the form of “Fred” The name stuck. However, this algorithm was not fun for those affected. The major algorithm change appeared to be primarily targeted at content with low value. On the 24th of March Ill-yes declared the algorithm update was confirmed. However, Google hasn’t shared details but instead has said that all the information about Fred is inside the Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines.
February 7 7, 2017
February 7 Update
The unconfirmed major change led to massive shifts in rankings in the SERPs of Google, which could also mean significant changes or reductions for certain websites. It appears that the better-quality, as well as more relevant sites, got the most exposure.
January 1st February 1, 2017
February 1 Update
It was a minor, not confirmed Google update. Though all information about the update is speculation rather than factual, it appears to be aimed at private blog networks or those who are involved in the spam-my business of building links.
January 10 10, 2017
Intrusive Interstitials Update
On August 23rd, 2016 Google announced a planned change that will target annoying pop-ups and interstitial that hinder the user experience when searching for mobile phones. The update was promised and came out on the 10th of January, 2017. The effect the update had on rankings was minor.
