Full history of Google algorithm changes, including the most recent ones.

The term "Google algorithm" refers to a complicated system that is made to pull information from Google's huge database when a search is made. This gets the info in a matter of seconds. Google's search index has a huge number of web pages that have a lot of different kinds of data and information. Google's algorithms are meant to help people find the information they want among all the information on the web. Google ranks the search results for a question based on how relevant they are, how good they are, and other things. Specialized algorithms are also used for this ranking.

Google makes changes to its algorithms from time to time to improve its performance and user experience. With every update, Google adds a new feature that improves how it works and makes it better at meeting users' needs. Google has gotten so much better because of these changes. Google has been speeding up how often it changes its algorithms, which used to happen less often. Let's look at the past of the most important changes to Google's algorithm.

What are Google Algorithms and How Do They Work?

Google uses a complex system of algorithms to pull information from its search index and give the best possible results for a search question. On its search engine results pages (SERPs), the search engine shows pages ranked by how relevant they are by using a mix of algorithms and several ranking factors. In its early years, Google's formulas were only changed a few times. Google makes thousands of changes every year.

Google April 2023 Review Update – April 12, 2023,

All types of reviews are now covered by Google's April 2023 Review update. It focuses on improving the quality of content and gives suggestions like thinking about the reader's point of view, showing expertise, and providing useful tools. The focus is on being open and putting the most important things first.

March 2023 Core Update — March 15, 2023,

As a result of this update, the ranks on the search engine results page (SERP) may change a lot. In the next update, pages that offer more worth will be given more attention.

February 2023 Product Reviews Update — February 21, 2023,

With this update, reviews that users don't care about will be taken away. Updated Google product reviews from February 2023 aim to raise the quality of product reviews by showing more honest, in-depth, and informative ones.

Link Spam Update for Google Search in December 2022: On December 14, 2022,

Google says that it is starting to add yet another change to search results that will make them more useful. It began on December 5 and could be done in two weeks. Google's goal with its "helpful content" strategy is to support websites that are made with users, not search engines, in mind. It tries to highlight material that goes above and beyond what is widely available from other publishers and adds unique value to the web.

Google October 2022 Spam Update Completed

Google's October 2022 Spam Algorithm Update is now life. Google has stated that a change to its spam-fighting algorithm is being made to search results in all languages and locations. Google says that the October 2022 spam fix is likely to take a while to fully work. (This is pretty clear since it took Google 11 months to get ready for its start.

Google Product Reviews Update Rollout for September 2022 is Complete

Before the news got out, the most popular search engine quietly changed the same information on its website for Google Search ranking updates.

This is the fifth change to the formula that is meant to help review sites.

Even though Google suggested a change to product reviews in August, this update didn't come out until after the Core Algorithm Update in September.

July 2022 Product Reviews Update Roll Out Completed

Google's July 2022 Product Reviews Update went live on July 27, 2022, and it was finished on August 2, 2022. This algorithm improvement was done in only six days. As you probably know, Google has its own methods, and this update is one of them. Review websites with better content are rewarded.

July 2022 Product Review Algorithm Update

Google made an official announcement about it on Twitter. On July 27, 2022, Google changed its algorithm for product reviews. This is the fourth time that Google has changed its algorithm for product reviews.

May 2022: Google Core Algorithm Update Rollout is Completed (June 9, 2022)

Google just said that the release of the May 2022 wide core upgrade is done. Google says that the May 2022 core update rollout is now complete. Google makes big changes slowly, so it takes a few weeks for all of their effects to be felt. Since November 2021, this is the first big change to Google's core since then.

May 2022: Google will change its core algorithm.

Google says that a big change to the core code called the May 2022 core update, was just made. You can expect wide-ranging effects, such as changes in search ranks. Pages that drop in ranks aren't punished; instead, they are compared to other content that has been added to the web since the last update. Changes don't mean that the condition will get better. On the other hand, if you don't make any changes, you will almost certainly not get better.

Review Update for March 2022 Products

Google has already been using the third version of its change to product reviews for almost three weeks. It's called the March 2022 product reviews upgrade from Google, and it's now life. Google says that the change to product reviews for March 2022 is now done. This fix, which was first talked about on March 23, has now been fully put in place after 19 days.

Desktop Rollout Completed for Page Experience On March 3, 2022,

Google finally stated that the update to the page experience has been made to all desktop search results. This update began going out on February 22 and was done on March 3. It took 9 days to get everything ready.

After this, users can now start figuring out how it affects their search results.

Product Review Update December 2021

In April, Google released an update for websites with weak comments that don't add anything.

Google's second update for product reviews in 2021 was meant to help sites that give reviews from top to bottom and help people make better buying decisions.

November 2021 Update on the Core

In November 2021, Google made another big change to its core algorithms.

This change doesn't mean that your website has a problem. If your rankings go down, it just means that your information needs to be updated. You only need to edit the information before you do anything else.

There's no need to worry because nothing can't be changed.

Spam News for November 2021

The November Spam Update from Google has started to be used, the company says.

It's like the core ones in that this huge search engine tried to change the way search results work by leaving out places that its algorithms think are dangerous.

Google has made changes to its Link Spam Algorithm. – On July 26, 2021,

Google said it was going to send out an update to its algorithm that would look for and get rid of link spam. Google has warned that sites that use link spam may see their rankings drop. Sponsored, guest and affiliate content is most likely to be impacted. Google says that the update will be fully rolled out in "at least" two weeks and will touch many languages.

Core Update Completed – July 12, 2021,

Google Search Liaison says that the release of the July 2021 Core Update went well on July 12. There was no other information given.

Core Update – July 1, 2021,

Google Search Liaison says that the July 2021 Core Update is being rolled out and that it will take one to two weeks to finish. The Google Search Central Blog tells you how to make changes that are important to Google.

Spam Update Part 2 – June 28, 2021,

Google Search Liaison said on Twitter that the second part of their spam update would start on June 28 and probably end on the same day. The first statement was about a post on the Google Search Central Blog from 2020 about how Google would fight Search spam. The post was updated in April 2021.

Spam Update June 2021 – June 23, 2021,

Danny Sullivan of Google said on Twitter that a change to the search algorithm was being made to fight spam. The update was meant to go live on the same day. He said that a second spam update would be out in a week. Google didn't say who or what this update was meant for.

Page Experience Update – June 15, 2021,

Google's long-awaited Page Experience update has started to roll out. Google says that sites shouldn't expect big changes as a result of this update, and the progressive deployment process should help lower any unexpected drops or spikes. By the end of August 2021, all of the changes will have been made.

Known Victims Protection – June 10, 2021,

On June 10, Vice President of Search and Google Fellow Pandu Nayak wrote a piece for The Keyword blog. He talked about Google's attempts to improve the algorithm so that sites that "use exploitative removals tactics" and "predatory practices" are moved down in the rankings. He also gave a link that people could use to report online abuse.

Broad Core Algorithm Update – June 2, 2021,

Danny Sullivan, who is in charge of Google's Search Liaison, said on Twitter that a big change was coming to the core algorithm. Sullivan says that some of the expected changes weren't ready for this update, so those parts will be sent out with a second, related broad core algorithm update that is due in July.

Product Reviews Update – April 8, 2021

"Product reviews with in-depth research instead of thin information that just sums up a bunch of different products," says the new update to the search ranking algorithm. In their release, Google also talked about nine things to think about when writing and posting product reviews.

Passage Ranking – February 10, 2021,

Danny Sullivan, Google's Public Liaison for Search, wrote on Twitter that English-language searches in the US can now use Passage Ranking. Google says that this change doesn't mean that they are indexing sections separately from pages. We're still indexing pages and putting full-page information in order. But now we can also use snippets from pages as a ranking factor..."

Dec 2020, Core Update

In December, Google made a change to its core algorithm. It is the third time that an algorithm has been changed this year.

May 2020, Update to the Core

Danny Sullivan from Google tweeted about that change to the broad core algorithm. They put out these kinds of reports a few times a year.

January 2020 – Getting rid of duplicate featured snippets

With this update, pages that appear in a featured snippet will no longer also appear in the normal organic listings on Page 1. This update changed search listings everywhere in the world.

January 2020 Update on the Core:

It was made clear that this update will definitely change the search results around the world. This update is not aimed at something specific, like the speed update.

Bert (Worldwide)-2019:

Google's long-awaited update, which was released around the world, included many languages that are known all over the world. It was also said that this was the most important change in the past five years.

Bert-2019:

The BERT launch (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) update in 2019 got a lot of attention. It is also a method for Natural Language Processing (NLP), just like Rankbrain. BERT was able to figure out what a question meant by looking at how words were used in a sentence. Instead, it is a big step forward in making search results better for people.

Rankbrain-2015:

People say that this update is one of Google's most advanced algorithm changes. It did this because it used machine learning to answer questions. It made the search results better and more useful by suggesting words with related meanings for the words it didn't know in the query. It helped Google figure out what a search question was trying to find and give suggestions based on that.

Mobbilegedon-2015:

Mobbilegeddon is what people call Google's change to make it more mobile-friendly. It came out on April 21, 2015. It was also used as a scoring signal in more ways. It had an effect on nearly every website, but it wasn't as strong as Panda or Penguin. It told if a page was good for mobile devices or not. There was nothing in the middle. It took the experience of the person to a whole new level.

Google Pigeon-2014:

On July 24, 2014, the Google Pigeon update went live. It was meant to improve the results of neighborhood searches. It also had an effect on the businesses in the area and on Google Maps. It used the user's location to give them customized search results based on how close they were to the user's position.

Hummingbird-2013:

Google's Hummingbird update, which came out in the fall of 2013, was likely the most important one. It set the stage for voice-search results, which are still a new idea. It focused on the whole search question instead of just the keywords, which led to better search results.

Payday-2013:

Google's Payday update came out in 2013 with the goal of going after spam sites and searches. It was changed three more times to make it work better. It made SEO experts pay close attention to Google's webmaster instructions when making the content on their sites.

Update for Exact Domain Match EDM in 2012:

In 2012, Google came out with the Exact Domain Match EDM update. The goal of this update was to go after domain names with a perfect match. It also looked at the quality of the material on the sites to figure out how useful these low-quality sites are to users. It was an important change to stop SEO workers from using "black hat" techniques.

Google Penguin-2012:

In April 2012, Google released a change to its webspam algorithm called "Penguin." It was set up to stop manipulative link building and link spam and improve SEO. It was a useful change to deal with low-quality content. It gave Google more power over Black Hat SEO techniques. It checked to see if a website was trying to trick a search engine by giving it fake links to other pages. It made it harder to use these kinds of tricks to move up in the rankings. Google then changed it another five or six times.

Panda Update-2011:

The Panda update, which came out on February 23, 2011, is seen as the first big and noticeable change to SEO in the 21st century. It worked to improve thin search results and find websites that were only made to rank well in search engines. It did this by putting more emphasis on on-page factors and looking at whether a website gives real value to users or not. The Panda update mostly tried to get rid of affiliate sites and sites with little information.

Caffeine (2009 preview; 2010 release):

The Caffeine update, which came out in August 2009, was meant to make changes to the infrastructure. Its major goals were to increase the size of the total index, add ranking right away, and speed up crawling. Google started using it in June 2010.

Google Suggest-2008:

It was a big change that happened in August 2008. As the name suggests, this update made it possible for Google to suggest the search the user was looking for when he typed his question. Google Instant was also powered by it.

Supplemental Update-2006:

The secondary update was made and put into use in November 2006 so that extra index changes could be made. It changed the way that page screening was done before. Google made it clear that it was not a punishment, even though it seemed like one.

Jagger-2005:

In October 2005, Google released a set of Jagger algorithm updates. These updates were aimed at low-quality links. Paid links, link farms, and mutual links are all types of low-quality links.

Gilligan-2005:

At first, it was thought to be a fake version. It was because Google said that it had not made any major changes to the system. On the other hand, changes were seen everywhere.

Allegra-2005:

This change was first talked about in February 2005. The update's most important parts were never made public, but rumors say it changed the sandbox. Some people also thought that LSI had been updated, while others thought that it was made to deal with secret links.

Nofollow-2005:

This fix came out in January 2005, and Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all did it at the same time. It was made to help fight junk and improve the quality of links going out. It also helped get rid of blog comments that were just spam.

Brandy-2004:

After a month since the last release, Austin, this one came out. With the Brandy update, link neighborhoods, the latent semantic index, and the importance of anchor text were given more attention. With the help of the Latent Semantic Index (LSI), it also made it easier to analyze keywords and find synonyms for search terms.

Austin-2004:

The flaws of Florida were fixed in the Austin update. The main goal has stayed the same, which is to go after websites that use unethical ways to boost their Google rating. It also had META-tag stuffing and opaque text as extra features.

Florida-2003:

The Florida update, which came out on November 16, 2003, is a big deal in Google's history of algorithm changes. Its main goal was to change the signs for ranking. It made SEOs less likely to use "black hat" techniques. Many websites that used unethical methods were hurt by this update, which stopped others from following the same road. Business owners showed their dislike for this update the most when it went into effect.

Fritz-2003:

When Fritz came out in July 2003, the monthly Google Dance was finally over. Like Esmeralda, it was put in place to make changes to the way the Google Index works. It stopped updating the index every month and started updating it every day. It made search results more stable by indexing them quickly and focusing on websites that used black-hat SEO methods like hidden links or texts.

Esmeralda-2003:

The Esmeralda change, which happened in June 2003, was the second-to-last Google algorithm update, going in order from A to Z. It basically changed the way the Google index is built. It got rid of "Google Dance" and replaced it with "The Everflux." It also made a lot of changes to the way Google works.

Dominic-2003:

The Dominic update, which came out in May 2003, had a huge effect on search results. People think that this update's main features were more search results based on themes and reporting or counting backlinks.

Cassandra-2003:

In April 2003, a change was made to Cassandra. It was also supposed to change the cues for ranking. It gave Google the chance to go after fake websites that use black-hat SEO techniques like backlinks. The main goals of this update were to find hidden texts and links, as well as backlinks from co-domains. It helped Google deal with basic problems with the quality of links.

Boston-2003:

In February 2003, it was the first change to the Google algorithm that was given a name. It was introduced at SES Boston, so the name "Boston update" comes from that. Changes to ranking signals were the main part of this update. After this, a run of updates began in alphabetical order, from b to f.

Google toolbar-2000:

This web browser toolbar, called Google toolbar, was added to the search engine in December 2000. At the same time, TBPR Toolbar Page Rank was also added, which led to all these arguments about Search Engine Optimization SEO. You can see this toolbar at the top of Google's tab bar. The most important parts of this update are website search, PageRank, and search words that automatically go to the right place.