Freshness update

What changed

Building on the Caffeine indexing system, Google adjusted ranking so that recency mattered more for queries about current events, recurring events and frequently updated topics. Google said roughly 35% of searches were affected to some degree, though only a small share noticeably. Evergreen informational queries were largely unaffected, and Google cautioned against republishing content simply to appear fresh.

Timing

Rollout began 3 November 2011. No completion date was announced. Rankings typically remain unstable for the whole rollout window, so measurements taken inside it are not a reliable read on the outcome.

What it affected

Related terminology