Platform properties roll out globally in Search Console
Google made Search Console platform properties available worldwide and published a social and video performance guide alongside them.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Timeline
Every algorithm update, dated
195 documented changes to how search engines rank and present results, from 2003 to now. Updates the engine itself confirmed are marked as such; well-documented but unconfirmed volatility events are included and labelled honestly rather than dressed up as fact.
195
Recorded changes
183
Engine-confirmed
28
Core updates
8
Platforms
2003
Earliest recorded
2026 · 12 changes
Social and video platform performance in Search Console
Search Console began showing how a brand's content on social and video platforms performs inside Google Search.
Product LaunchConfirmed
June 2026 spam update
Spam update rolled out in under two days, the second of 2026.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console
Google began reporting performance in AI Overviews and AI Mode separately within Search Console, addressing a long-standing publisher request.
Product LaunchConfirmedHigh impact
May 2026 core update
Second core update of 2026, completing in twelve days and reported as causing significant ranking volatility.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
New resource for optimizing for generative AI in Google Search
Google published a consolidated documentation resource on how content is surfaced in its generative AI search experiences.
DocumentationConfirmed
Back button hijacking spam policy
Google added a spam policy prohibiting pages that manipulate browser history to prevent users returning to search results.
PolicyConfirmed
Inside Googlebot: crawling and fetching documentation
Google published an unusually detailed explanation of how Googlebot crawls, fetches and processes bytes from a page.
DocumentationConfirmed
New location for Google crawler IP range files
Google moved the published JSON files listing Googlebot and other crawler IP ranges to a new location.
DocumentationConfirmed
March 2026 core update
First core update of 2026, described by Google as a regular update to better surface relevant, satisfying content.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
March 2026 spam update
Spam update that began and completed on the same day, the fastest rollout Google has recorded on its status dashboard.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
February 2026 Discover update
First broad update Google announced specifically for the Discover feed rather than Search, taking three weeks to roll out.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
2025 · 32 changes
December 2025 core update
Third and final core update of 2025, running for eighteen days across the holiday period.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Social channels in Search Console
Search Console began reporting on how a brand's social and creator channels perform in Google Search.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Weekly and monthly views in Search Console
Search Console performance reports gained weekly and monthly aggregation alongside the existing daily view.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Branded queries filter in Search Console
Search Console gained a filter separating branded from non-branded queries in the performance reports.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Custom annotations in Search Console
Search Console let site owners annotate performance charts with their own events such as migrations and releases.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Update on the search results simplification programme
Google reported progress on removing low-value rich results and SERP enhancements begun in mid-2025.
DeprecationConfirmed
Query groups in Search Console Insights
Search Console Insights began clustering related queries into groups so performance could be read at topic level.
Product LaunchConfirmed
US v. Google remedies ruling
The court ordered Google to share search index and user interaction data with competitors and barred exclusive default search contracts.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
num=100 search parameter stops working
Google silently stopped honouring the num=100 URL parameter, breaking the standard method for retrieving 100 results in one request.
Data ChangeUnconfirmedHigh impact
Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standard published
A publisher-led open standard launched to express machine-readable licensing terms for AI use of web content, extending robots.txt.
PolicyConfirmed
Store widget in Google Search
Google launched a merchant store widget surfacing shipping, returns and ratings information alongside retailer results.
Product LaunchConfirmed
August 2025 spam update
First spam update in eight months, taking nearly four weeks to roll out.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Bing Search APIs retired
Microsoft shut down the Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs, removing a major independent source of SERP data for tooling vendors.
DeprecationConfirmed
Cloudflare accuses Perplexity of stealth crawling
Cloudflare published research alleging Perplexity used undeclared crawlers and rotating identities to fetch pages that had blocked its declared bot.
PolicyUnconfirmed
Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers by default
Cloudflare made blocking AI crawlers the default for new domains, ending open-by-default access to a large share of the web.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
Cloudflare Pay Per Crawl
Cloudflare launched a private beta letting publishers charge AI crawlers per request using the HTTP 402 Payment Required status code.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Google Trends API (alpha)
Google opened an alpha API for Google Trends data, giving programmatic access to scaled search interest for the first time.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Perplexity Comet browser
Perplexity released an agentic browser that navigates and acts on websites on the user's behalf, released free in October 2025.
Product LaunchConfirmed
June 2025 core update
Second core update of 2025, running for over two weeks and reported as substantially larger than the March release.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Loyalty program structured data support
Google added markup allowing retailers to describe member-only pricing and loyalty benefits in product results.
Data ChangeConfirmed
New Search Console Insights report
Google rebuilt Search Console Insights as a full report inside Search Console with richer trend and content analysis.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Simplifying the search results page
Google began removing rarely used rich result types and SERP enhancements as part of a deliberate simplification programme.
DeprecationConfirmed
AI Mode launches for all US users
Google took AI Mode out of Labs and made it available to everyone in the United States, powered by a custom Gemini 2.5 model.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
App deep link documentation for Search
Google published guidance on connecting a website and its mobile app so search results can open the app at the right screen.
DocumentationConfirmed
Guidance for content in Google's AI experiences
Google published its first consolidated guidance on how content is selected for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
DocumentationConfirmed
Copilot Search in Bing
Microsoft introduced Copilot Search as a mode within Bing that combines conventional results with generated, cited answers.
AI FeatureConfirmed
Hourly data in the Search Analytics API
Google exposed hourly Search Console performance data through the Search Analytics API, not just the web interface.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Claude web search and Claude-SearchBot
Anthropic added live web search to Claude with cited sources, alongside separate crawler identities for search and user-initiated fetches.
AI FeatureConfirmed
March 2025 core update
First core update of 2025, rolled out over two weeks with Google noting an emphasis on surfacing satisfying content from creators.
Core UpdateConfirmed
AI Mode launched in Search Labs
Google began testing AI Mode, a fully conversational search surface with no conventional results list, as a Labs experiment.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
Robots Refresher documentation series
Google published a multi-part series restating how the Robots Exclusion Protocol works and how to use page-level controls correctly.
DocumentationConfirmed
Visible URL element simplified on mobile results
Google simplified the breadcrumb-style URL line shown above mobile search results, reducing what publishers could influence.
Data ChangeConfirmed
2024 · 37 changes
December 2024 spam update
Week-long spam update starting the day after the December core update finished, running through the holiday period.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
ChatGPT search opened to all free users
OpenAI made web search available to all logged-in ChatGPT users at no cost, greatly expanding the audience for AI-cited content.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
December 2024 core update
Unusually fast core update completing in six days, launched a week after the November update finished.
Core UpdateConfirmed
24-hour view added to Search Console performance reports
Search Console gained a near-real-time 24-hour performance view with data delayed by only a few hours.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Site reputation abuse policy update
Google clarified that first-party involvement or editorial oversight does not exempt third-party content from the site reputation abuse policy.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
November 2024 core update
Core update running from 11 November to 5 December 2024, again spanning the peak retail period.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
ChatGPT search launch
OpenAI shipped web search inside ChatGPT for paying users, with in-line citations and source sidebars.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
Sitelinks search box removed
Google retired the sitelinks search box that had let users search within a site directly from the results page.
DeprecationConfirmed
CJEU upholds Google Shopping fine
The EU Court of Justice made final the €2.4bn Google Shopping self-preferencing decision, ending a case running since 2010.
PolicyConfirmed
August 2024 core update
Core update explicitly framed as an attempt to better surface small independent publishers after feedback on the September 2023 helpful content update.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
US v. Google search monopoly ruling
A US federal judge ruled that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in general search services and general text advertising.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
AVIF image format supported in Google Search
Google added AVIF to the image formats it can index and display in Google Images and image-based search features.
Data ChangeConfirmed
Recommendations introduced in Search Console
Search Console began surfacing automated, property-specific recommendations for improvements and unused features.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Explicit fake content ranking updates
Google made removal of non-consensual explicit imagery easier and demoted sites that receive many such removal requests.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Perplexity Publishers Program
Perplexity launched revenue sharing with publishers whose content is cited in its answers, following plagiarism accusations.
PolicyConfirmed
SearchGPT prototype and OAI-SearchBot
OpenAI announced a search prototype with publisher controls and introduced OAI-SearchBot as a separate crawler for search indexing.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
Bing generative search
Microsoft began testing a fully AI-generated Bing results page that reorganises web content into a synthesised layout with citations.
AI FeatureConfirmed
Mobile accessibility required for indexing
Google completed the mobile-first transition: from July 2024 a page must be accessible to a mobile device to be indexed at all.
InfrastructureConfirmed
Cloudflare one-click AI crawler blocking
Cloudflare gave all customers, including free plans, a single toggle to block AI training crawlers at the network edge.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
Shipping and returns policy configuration in Search Console
Google let retailers declare shipping and return policies directly in Search Console instead of only through structured data.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Yandex Russian assets sold and separated from Nebius
Yandex's Russian businesses, including its search engine, were sold to Russian investors and split from the Dutch parent company.
PolicyConfirmed
June 2024 spam update
Week-long spam update enforcing Google's published spam policies across all languages.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Continuous scroll removed from search results
Google reversed continuous scrolling and restored pagination, first on desktop and then on mobile.
DeprecationConfirmed
Google Content Warehouse API documentation leak
Thousands of internal Google Search API documentation modules leaked, listing over 14,000 ranking-related attributes.
Data ChangeUnconfirmed
AI Overviews launch
Google graduated SGE into AI Overviews and rolled it out to all US users by default, with international expansion following.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
Site reputation abuse spam policy
Google banned publishing third-party content on an established site mainly to exploit that site's ranking signals, widely known as parasite SEO.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
INP replaces FID as a Core Web Vital
Interaction to Next Paint became an official Core Web Vital on 12 March 2024, and First Input Delay was retired.
Data ChangeConfirmed
EU Digital Markets Act compliance changes to Google Search
Google reworked search results in the European Economic Area to comply with the DMA's ban on self-preferencing, adding aggregator units and refinement chips.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
Expired domain abuse spam policy
Google prohibited buying expired domains and repurposing them with unrelated content in order to inherit their historical ranking signals.
PolicyConfirmed
Helpful content system folded into core ranking
Google retired the standalone helpful content classifier and moved its signals into multiple core ranking systems.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
March 2024 core update
The longest and most complex core update Google had run, taking 45 days and folding the helpful content system into core ranking.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
March 2024 spam update
Spam update released alongside three new spam policies covering scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse.
Spam UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Scaled content abuse spam policy
Google replaced its automatically generated content policy with one covering content produced at scale to manipulate rankings, regardless of production method.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
Cached links removed from search results
Google removed the cached page link from search results, later retiring the cache: search operator as well.
DeprecationConfirmed
EEA rich results, aggregator units and refinement chips
Google introduced European Economic Area-only search formats to satisfy Digital Markets Act obligations on fair ranking.
Product LaunchConfirmedHigh impact
Product variant structured data support
Google added structured data support for describing product variants such as size and colour on a single product page.
Data ChangeConfirmed
Crawl rate limiter tool removed from Search Console
Google withdrew the legacy Search Console tool that let site owners cap Googlebot's crawl rate.
DeprecationConfirmed
2023 · 23 changes
Bing Chat rebranded as Copilot
Microsoft renamed Bing Chat to Copilot and began separating the assistant from the Bing search brand.
Product LaunchConfirmed
November 2023 reviews update
Final announced reviews update before Google made the reviews system continuous and stopped announcing releases.
SystemConfirmed
November 2023 core update
Fourth core update of 2023, running for nearly four weeks and using a different core ranking system from the October release.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Page experience report simplified in Search Console
Google removed the combined page experience score view from Search Console, keeping Core Web Vitals and HTTPS as separate reports.
DeprecationConfirmed
October 2023 core update
Third core update of 2023, launched a day after a spam update and completed in under two weeks.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
October 2023 spam update
Spam update focused on cloaking, hacked content, auto-generated spam and scraped content in several under-served languages.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Navboost and click-based ranking signals revealed
US antitrust trial testimony revealed Navboost, a long-running Google system that uses aggregated click and query data to re-rank results.
SystemUnconfirmed
Google-Extended crawler control introduced
Google introduced a robots.txt token letting publishers opt out of having crawled content used to train Gemini and Vertex AI generative models.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
ChatGPT browsing with Bing
OpenAI re-enabled live web browsing in ChatGPT using Bing as the retrieval layer, with citations back to source pages.
AI FeatureConfirmed
September 2023 helpful content update
Third and most severe helpful content update, accompanied by revised guidance on AI-generated and hosted third-party content.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Naver Cue: generative search
South Korea's Naver launched a generative search service built on its HyperCLOVA X model, integrated into its dominant domestic portal.
AI FeatureConfirmed
August 2023 core update
Second core update of 2023, rolling out over sixteen days with significant movement for independent publishers.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
HowTo and FAQ rich result deprecation
Google removed HowTo rich results entirely and restricted FAQ rich results to authoritative government and health sites.
DeprecationConfirmedHigh impact
GPTBot crawler introduced
OpenAI published a named crawler and robots.txt token so publishers could opt out of having their content used for model training.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
INP announced as replacement for FID
Google announced that Interaction to Next Paint would replace First Input Delay as the Core Web Vitals responsiveness metric in March 2024.
DocumentationConfirmed
Perspectives filter and discussions and forums
Google introduced surfaces that promoted first-hand opinion from forums, social video and Q&A communities alongside conventional results.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Search Generative Experience (SGE) launch
Google launched a generative AI answer layer above search results as an opt-in Search Labs experiment in the United States.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
April 2023 reviews update
Product reviews system was broadened to cover reviews of services, businesses, destinations and media, and renamed the reviews system.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Baidu ERNIE Bot and AI search integration
Baidu launched its ERNIE large language model assistant and began integrating generated answers into Chinese search results.
AI FeatureConfirmed
March 2023 core update
First core update of 2023, rolled out over two weeks with wide volatility across content categories.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
February 2023 product reviews update
Product reviews update expanded beyond English to Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish and more.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Bing Chat launch (the new Bing)
Microsoft rebuilt Bing around an OpenAI-powered chat experience, the first generative answer layer shipped by a major search engine.
AI FeatureConfirmedHigh impact
Yandex source code leak
A 44GB archive of Yandex source code leaked publicly, exposing roughly 1,900 ranking factors from a major search engine.
Data ChangeUnconfirmed
2022 · 13 changes
E-E-A-T: Experience added to quality rater guidelines
Google added Experience to Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
DocumentationConfirmed
December 2022 link spam update (SpamBrain)
Link spam update powered by SpamBrain that neutralised both unnatural outbound links and links to spam sites.
Spam UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Continuous scroll on desktop
Google brought continuous scrolling to desktop search results in US English, replacing the traditional pagination control.
Product LaunchConfirmed
December 2022 helpful content update
Second helpful content update, extended to all languages and taking almost six weeks to complete.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
October 2022 spam update
Fast global spam update completing in two days, applying to all languages.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
September 2022 product reviews update
Product reviews update that ran concurrently with the September 2022 core update, complicating attribution.
SystemConfirmed
September 2022 core update
Second core update of 2022, arriving days after the first helpful content update finished rolling out.
Core UpdateConfirmed
August 2022 helpful content update
Launch of the helpful content system, a site-wide signal demoting content made mainly for search engines rather than people.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
July 2022 product reviews update
Fifth product reviews update, completing in under a week.
SystemConfirmed
May 2022 core update
First core update of 2022, rolled out over roughly two weeks with substantial volatility across news and health.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
URL Parameters tool removed from Search Console
Google retired the Search Console URL Parameters tool, saying its crawling systems no longer needed the manual hints.
DeprecationConfirmed
March 2022 product reviews update
Fourth product reviews update, rolled out over two weeks with expanded guidance for reviewers.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
February 2022 page experience update (desktop)
Page experience signals, including Core Web Vitals, were extended from mobile to desktop search results.
AlgorithmConfirmed
2021 · 17 changes
December 2021 product reviews update
Third product reviews update, adding guidance on multi-retailer links and evidence of hands-on testing.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Vicinity local search update
Local ranking change that increased the weight of proximity, reducing visibility for businesses far from the searcher.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
November 2021 core update
Core update released two weeks before the holiday peak, completing on 30 November after a fast, volatile start.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
November 2021 spam update
Broad spam update rolled out over about a week, listed on Google's official ranking updates dashboard.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
IndexNow protocol launched
Microsoft and Yandex launched an open push protocol letting sites notify participating search engines the moment a URL is added, updated or deleted.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Continuous scroll on mobile
Google replaced mobile pagination with continuous scrolling through roughly four pages of results in US English.
Product LaunchConfirmed
Title link generation change
Google began rewriting search result titles using on-page text such as H1s rather than relying on the title element.
Data ChangeConfirmed
July 2021 link spam update
Month-long link spam update that nullified manipulative links, with particular attention to affiliate and sponsored content.
Spam UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
July 2021 core update
Second half of the split 2021 core update, completing the changes Google could not ship in June.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Structured Data Testing Tool retired
Google retired its Structured Data Testing Tool in favour of the Rich Results Test and handed the generic validator to Schema.org.
DeprecationConfirmed
June 2021 spam updates
Two rapid spam updates released within a week, overlapping with the June 2021 core update.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Page experience update (mobile) rollout
Core Web Vitals and other page experience signals began affecting mobile ranking, rolled out gradually over two and a half months.
AlgorithmConfirmed
June 2021 core update
First half of a split core update, with Google saying some planned components were not ready and would follow in July.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
MUM (Multitask Unified Model)
Multimodal, multilingual model announced at Google I/O 2021 and first applied to complex informational queries.
SystemConfirmed
April 2021 product reviews update
First release of the product reviews system, rewarding in-depth reviews with original research over thin round-ups.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
SpamBrain
Google's machine-learning spam prevention system, first named publicly in its 2020 webspam report and used to power later spam and link spam updates.
SystemConfirmed
Passage ranking launches
Passage-level ranking went live for US English queries, later expanding to other languages and markets.
SystemConfirmed
2020 · 9 changes
December 2020 core update
Large core update released in the middle of the holiday retail season, completing after about two weeks.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Page experience ranking signal announced
Google confirmed page experience, including Core Web Vitals, would become a ranking signal from May 2021, later delayed to June.
DocumentationConfirmedHigh impact
Subtopics ranking
Neural system that identifies subtopics within a broad query so results cover a wider range of angles.
SystemConfirmed
Yandex YATI
Transformer-based relevance model that Yandex described as its biggest ranking improvement in ten years.
SystemConfirmed
Passage ranking announced
Google announced it would index and rank individual passages within a page, not just whole pages.
SystemConfirmed
Core Web Vitals introduced
Google defined a standard set of user-experience metrics — LCP, FID and CLS — as the Core Web Vitals.
DocumentationConfirmedHigh impact
May 2020 core update
Unusually large core update released during the pandemic, with heavy movement in travel, events and local queries.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Featured snippet deduplication
A page promoted into a featured snippet stopped also appearing as a regular result on page one, removing the double listing.
Data ChangeConfirmed
January 2020 core update
Broad core update announced on the day of release, reported as relatively mild outside your-money-or-your-life topics.
Core UpdateConfirmed
2019 · 7 changes
BERT expands to 70+ languages
Google extended BERT-based query understanding from US English to more than 70 languages worldwide.
SystemConfirmed
Yandex Vega
Major Yandex ranking release that added neural pre-ranking, expert content assessment and faster index freshness.
AlgorithmConfirmed
BERT
Transformer-based language model applied to ranking and featured snippets, affecting around 10% of English queries at launch.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
September 2019 core update
Broad core update that Google pre-announced and that tracking tools recorded as milder than the March and June 2019 releases.
Core UpdateConfirmed
Site diversity change
Google limited how many results from the same domain could appear in the top results, generally to two per query.
AlgorithmConfirmed
June 2019 core update
First core update Google pre-announced, giving publishers a day's notice before the rollout began.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
March 2019 core update
Broad core update that Google retroactively named after the industry had already labelled it Florida 2, standardising month-based naming.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
2018 · 6 changes
Neural matching
AI system that connects words in a query to concepts in documents, revealed as affecting about 30% of queries.
SystemConfirmed
August 2018 broad core update (Medic)
Large core update that disproportionately affected health, medical and other your-money-or-your-life sites, nicknamed Medic.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
Speed Update
Page speed became a ranking factor for mobile search, affecting only the slowest pages.
AlgorithmConfirmed
April 2018 broad core update
Second broad core update of 2018, confirmed by Google only after the industry noticed widespread ranking movement.
Core UpdateConfirmed
Mobile-first indexing rollout begins
Google began migrating sites to mobile-first indexing, notifying each site through Search Console as it switched.
InfrastructureConfirmedHigh impact
March 2018 broad core update
Google publicly confirmed a broad core algorithm update, establishing the naming convention used for every core update since.
Core UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
2017 · 3 changes
Maccabees
Unconfirmed December 2017 update reported to affect sites built on large numbers of keyword-permutation landing pages.
AlgorithmUnconfirmed
Fred
Unconfirmed March 2017 quality update associated with heavy losses at ad-dense, thin affiliate and low-value content sites.
AlgorithmUnconfirmedHigh impact
Intrusive interstitials penalty
Mobile pages that hid content behind intrusive pop-ups or interstitials could rank lower, announced five months before launch.
AlgorithmConfirmed
2016 · 5 changes
Mobile-first indexing announced
Google announced it would begin using the mobile version of a page as the primary basis for indexing and ranking.
InfrastructureConfirmedHigh impact
Penguin 4.0 (real-time, into core)
Penguin became part of the core algorithm, ran in real time and moved from demoting sites to devaluing spammy links.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Possum
Unconfirmed local ranking change that altered filtering by physical address and expanded results for businesses outside city limits.
AlgorithmUnconfirmed
Mobile-friendly update 2
Google increased the weight of the mobile-friendly ranking signal in mobile search results.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Panda folded into core ranking
Google confirmed Panda had become part of its core ranking algorithm, ending separate named refreshes.
SystemConfirmed
2015 · 3 changes
RankBrain
Machine-learning system that interprets unfamiliar queries by relating them to concepts Google already understands.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Panda 4.2
Final standalone Panda refresh, rolled out deliberately slowly over several months so no completion date was declared.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Mobile-friendly update (Mobilegeddon)
Mobile-friendliness became a ranking signal for mobile searches, announced almost two months ahead of launch.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
2014 · 5 changes
Penguin 3.0
Long-delayed Penguin refresh, the first in more than a year, which let sites that had cleaned up their links recover.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Panda 4.1
Panda refresh and algorithm tweak that Google said affected 3–5% of queries and was designed to help small, high-quality sites.
AlgorithmConfirmed
HTTPS as a ranking signal
Google announced that serving a site over HTTPS would be used as a lightweight positive ranking signal.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Pigeon (local search update)
Rebuilt local ranking so that traditional web ranking signals, including links and on-page factors, applied more directly to local results.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
Panda 4.0
Major Panda algorithm revision, not just a data refresh, which Google said affected about 7.5% of English queries.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
2013 · 3 changes
Hummingbird
Rewrite of Google's core query-processing engine to interpret the meaning of a whole query rather than matching individual keywords.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Payday Loan update
Targeted heavily spammed query classes such as payday loans, pharmaceuticals, gambling and adult search.
Spam UpdateConfirmed
Penguin 2.0
Second-generation Penguin that looked beyond home pages and analysed link spam at the level of individual pages across a site.
Spam UpdateConfirmedHigh impact
2012 · 5 changes
Exact Match Domain (EMD) update
Removed the ranking advantage of low-quality domains whose names exactly matched a commercial search phrase.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Pirate (DMCA demotion signal)
Ranking demotion for sites with large numbers of valid copyright removal notices, aimed at piracy portals.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Penguin link spam system
Webspam algorithm targeting manipulative link building and over-optimised anchor text; launched April 2012 and later made real-time inside core ranking.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
Venice
Localised ordinary web results by the searcher's inferred location, making local intent apply to queries without an explicit place name.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
Page Layout (Top Heavy)
Demotion for pages that pushed content below the fold with excessive above-the-fold advertising.
AlgorithmConfirmed
2011 · 3 changes
Freshness update
Query deserves freshness change that Google said affected around 35% of searches by favouring recent content for time-sensitive queries.
AlgorithmConfirmed
Panda 2.0 (international rollout)
Panda extended beyond the United States to all English-language queries worldwide, with user blocking data incorporated as a signal.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
Panda content quality system
Site-wide content quality classifier that demoted thin, duplicated and low-value pages; launched February 2011 and later folded into core ranking.
SystemConfirmedHigh impact
2010 · 2 changes
Caffeine indexing system
Rebuilt indexing infrastructure that indexed pages continuously instead of in batches, producing an index Google described as 50% fresher.
InfrastructureConfirmedHigh impact
May Day
Change to how Google assessed long-tail queries that cut traffic to thin, template-generated category and tag pages.
AlgorithmConfirmed
2009 · 2 changes
Vince
Change that gave large, well-known brands substantially more visibility for generic head terms.
AlgorithmConfirmedHigh impact
rel="canonical" introduced
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft introduced the canonical link element so publishers could consolidate duplicate URLs onto a preferred version.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
2008 · 1 change
Dewey
Large but never-explained spring 2008 reshuffle of results, reported by the industry as a broad ranking change.
AlgorithmUnconfirmed
2007 · 2 changes
Paid link PageRank penalties
Google visibly reduced toolbar PageRank for sites judged to be selling links, signalling enforcement against the paid-link market.
Penalty ActionConfirmed
Universal Search
Google began blending news, images, video, local and book results into the main results page, ending the era of ten uniform blue links.
Product LaunchConfirmedHigh impact
2005 · 3 changes
Big Daddy
Infrastructure rebuild of Google's crawling and indexing stack that changed how redirects, canonicalisation and URL handling were processed.
InfrastructureConfirmed
Jagger
Multi-phase autumn 2005 update aimed at reciprocal links, paid links and link farms, rolled out in roughly three stages.
AlgorithmUnconfirmedHigh impact
rel="nofollow" link attribute introduced
Google, Yahoo and MSN jointly introduced rel="nofollow" so that publishers could mark links that should not pass ranking credit.
PolicyConfirmedHigh impact
2004 · 1 change
Austin
January 2004 follow-up to Florida that further targeted hidden text, meta-tag stuffing and other on-page manipulation.
AlgorithmUnconfirmed
2003 · 1 change
Florida
The first update to cause mass ranking loss for commercial sites, targeting keyword stuffing and early link manipulation just before the 2003 holiday season.
AlgorithmUnconfirmedHigh impact
No updates match those filters.
What this list is not. It is a record of what changed and when — not a diagnosis of why your traffic moved. Ranking movements correlate with update windows far more often than they are caused by them, and several entries here were reconstructed from litigation documents and leaked material rather than announced. Where that is the case, the entry says so.