Google updates

Google has revised its advice on how to write review content that Google Search rewards: "Publishing high quality reviews can help people learn more about things they are considering, such as products, services, destinations, games, movies or other topics".

The March 2023 core update targets all content types within all regions and languages to promote or reward high-quality or high-value web pages

This update applies to the following languages globally: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish. The rollout may take up to two weeks to complete

This link spam update was announced globally in all languages and targeted both ends that bought or sold links

This update introduced a new site-wide ranking signal based on machine learning. Google systems have been set to automatically identify content that seems to have little value, low-added value, or is otherwise not helpful to searchers. The first iteration targeted English pages. Next, the Helpful Content Update was expanded globally in all languages in the successive rollout on December 5, 2022 and two weeks onwards.

Soon after the Helpful Content Update, Google proceeded with a spam update which was pretty swift, from October 19 to 21, 2022. According to Google, they have their antispam systems working ongoingly and improve them sometime, announcing major changes. The link spam update was announced globally in all languages and targeted both ends that bought or sold links. It is the first time that Google started using its AI-based spam detection system titled SpamBrain.

This update applies to English-language product reviews

Google announced the release of its core update to ensure that it is delivering reliable results to users. The update affects the way how Google assesses content overall.

Google announced the launch of the Helpful Content Update, which began on August 25th. Content creators can learn more about how to create content for people first on the Search Central blog.

Google announced the release of the July 2022 Product Reviews Update on July 27th.

On June 3, Google reported about an algorithmic adjustment concerning title links. If the search engine finds a mismatch between the language of the title and the main content on the page, it may generate a title link that matches better the primary content.

The May 2022 Core Update affected all types of content in all languages, but particularly hit websites with autogenerated or thin content. May 22 Core Update is said to have been one of the largest since 2021 and affected websites in all locations and languages. SEO experts noticed that the update hit hard on sites with autogenerated and thin content that had lost around 80-90 per cent of their traffic.

On March 22, 2022 Google announced the third version of the Product Reviews update, the full rollout took about three weeks, completed on around April 11. The update did not make as much impact as it was the case with the previous December product reviews update and its first phase a year ago.

On February 28, Google started rolling out the Google Page Experience update for desktops. This ranking launch is based on the same page experience signals as for mobile devices. It covers the Core Web Vitals metrics: LCP, FID, and CLS, and their associated thresholds now apply for desktop ranking. Other aspects of page experience signals, such as HTTPS protocol and absence of intrusive interstitials, remain crucial as well. Meanwhile, the mobile-friendliness signal is not applicable on desktop URLs.

On December 1, 2021, Google reported rolling out another major update since April related to product reviews in English. The rollout is promised to take place within three weeks and may impact the way product reviews rank in search engines.

The local search update was announced by Google on November 30th and was completed on December 8th. The update concerns companies with a physical location who need visibility in Google Maps and the local pack.

Google announced a broad core update to roll out from November 17 and two weeks onward. This core update gave a boost to reference materials like dictionaries, Wikipedia, some popular directories, law and government resources. However, there was a decline in the visibility of news websites. A noticeable shakedown was registered for the health category.

A regular spam update was rolled out to improve search results.

On August 24, Google confirmed the page titles update with which titles in search results might be replaced by a different text from the web page

On July 26, Google announced a link spam update. The goal of this update is to fight link spam and reward sites with high-quality content and good user experience.

On June 24, Google reported on the release of the spam update within their regular work to improve search results.

On June 15, 2021 Google released the Page Experience update. The primary goal of this update is to highlight pages that offer great user experiences. The update considers several page experience signals, including the three Core Web Vitals metrics: loading speed, visual stability and interactivity.

Regular core algoorithm improvement

On April 8, 2021 Google announced sharing an improvement to its ranking systems aimed to better reward product reviews, initially for the English language. The problem behind this one update is the abundance of thin-content product reviews that bring little value to users. This improvement is expected to improve the ranking of rich content product reviews.

On February 10, 2021 Google rolled out the Passage Ranking Update for US/English queries. This update was aimed to help long-form pages to rank with some parts of their content. With this update, you may want to pay some more attention to headings and paragraphs, the semantic and structure of covering subtopics within a bigger topic.

December 3, 2020 Google released a broad core algorithm update, as it does several times per year. It was called the December 2020 Core Update. Google guidance about such updates remains as covered before (please check E-A-T quality guidelines).

A broad core algorithm update.

Google announced that web pages in a featured snipped position will not be repeated in organic results.

A broad core algorithm update.

BERT is a new Google algorithm that is used for analyzing the structure of a search to better understand the context in which keywords are used. This technique aims to further improve the ability of search engines to understand spoken and written queries.

BERT is a new Google algorithm that is used for analyzing the structure of a search to better understand the context in which keywords are used. This technique aims to further improve the ability of search engines to understand spoken and written queries.

A broad core algorithm update.

A broad core algorithm update.

Google's global broad core algorithm update.

Unconfirmed Google update. Mostly positive changes in rankings have been reported.

Unconfirmed Google algorithm update.

A broad core algorithm update.

Google officially announced that Page Speed has become a ranking factor in their mobile search results.

Another broad core algorithm update.

A broad core algorithm update.

Some minor changes to the core algorithm have been applied by Google.

An unconfirmed update might have been released on this date impacting traffic and search visibility.

An unconfirmed Google minor update was rolled out affecting category pages, pages with aggressive advertising, lower-quality/thin content, and other negative user experience elements.

Another unconfirmed Google quality update.

An unconfirmed Google quality update: main fluctuations happened among pages that were ranking in positions 6-10.

Filter out low quality search results whose sole purpose is generating ad and affiliate revenue.

The latest of Google’s confirmed updates, Fred got its name from Google’s Gary Illyes, who jokingly suggested that all updates be named “Fred”. Google confirmed the update took place, but refused to discuss the specifics of it, saying simply that the sites that Fred targets are the ones that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines. However, the studies of affected sites show that the vast majority of them are content sites (mostly blogs) with low-quality articles on a wide variety of topics that appear to be created mostly for the purpose of generating ad or affiliate revenue.

On September, 23 Google has officially confirmed on the Google webmaster blog that their Penguin algorithm started running in real time.

Historically, the list of sites affected by Penguin was periodically refreshed at the same time. Once a webmaster considerably improved their site and its presence on the internet, many of Google's algorithms would take that into consideration very fast, but others, like Penguin, needed to be refreshed. With this change, Penguin's data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after Google recrawls and reindexes a page.

Possum is an unofficial name for a number of big changes in Google’s local ranking filter that took place on September 1st, 2016. Here are some of the update's effects:

1. The physical location of the searcher (the IP location) became more important for defining the ranking;
2. Businesses that are outside the physical city area got a boost in ranking;
3. Sharing the same address with similar local businesses may now become the reason for your listing to be filtered out from search results;
4. Local results now differ more depending on the specific search queries;

Google made major changes to AdWords, removing right-column ads entirely and rolling out 4-ad top blocks on many commercial searches. While this was a paid search update, it had significant implications for CTR for both paid and organic results, especially on competitive keywords.

Over the weekend (January 8-10) Google pushed a core ranking algorithm update, and many webmasters were seeing serious ranking fluctuations.

According to Google, the update was unrelated to Penguin or Panda, but was rather a core ranking algorithm update.

Google made a major announcement, revealing that machine learning had been a part of the algorithm for months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor.

A major change in Google's local search happened — a new way of listing local businesses in search results was rolled out, changing the previous "local 7-pack", where seven local businesses were featured, to a trimmed "local 3-pack" view.

The update has also drastically changed the look-n-feel and the navigation within the local packs.

Mobile-friendly update (aka Mobilegeddon) rolled out, supposed to boost the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. According to Google, this update:

- affects only search rankings on mobile devices
- affects search results in all languages globally
- applies to individual pages, not entire websites.

So far the impact of the update is smaller than expected. However, if you get a "not mobile-friendly" alert in your Google webmaster account, it's recommended to take certain action.

Google released Pigeon update in all English-speaking countries. As a result of this update, the listings further off the city centers dropped from local packs for many search queries.

Google rolls out another Pirate update and hits again websites with copyright issues. This time, some popular torrent sites reported large traffic drops. Also, such search terms as "free," "watch," "download," etc. have been removed from Google autocomplete.

Google announced another long-awaited Penguin update, which however didn't bring significant flux.

The Google Penguin algorithm targets sites using unnatural link building schemes. If your site got penalized, you'd most likely receive an alert in your Google Webmaster account. To recover from the Penguin penalty, make sure:

- you clean up all unnatural backlinks (e.g. wit too much keyword rich anchor text, reciprocal linking, linking networks, etc.)
- disavow potentially harmful links
- send out a reconsideration request

The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

The Pigeon update significantly changed the local search results in Google Maps. Google tried to incorporate the traditional search techniqies for the local listings. Additionally, the local pack listings for SEO, marketing and design companies returned to the results. In fact, many companies registered drops in local packs and said the update didn't improve the local search results.

Matt Cutts announced the new Panda update was rolled out, targeting 7.5% of all English searches.

Panda update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

Though announced on September 26 only, Hummingbird was in fact released a month before that and is said to affect 90% of search queries.

Hummingbird is not a penalty-based update (like Panda or Penguin), but a change in the way Google reacts to different types of queries. It focuses not just on keywords, but on their context to better understand searcher's intent. This update also better deals with conversational queries.

That was a "soft" version of Panda update, which brought recovery to some previously penalized websites. Webmasters noticed improved rankings and higher traffic.

Panda update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

This algorithm update affected spammy websites in notoriously abusive industries such as payday loans and pornography. It targeted black hat SEO tactics (link schemes mostly), but resulted in just 0.3% US searches affected.

Google rolled out a new generation of the Penguin webspam filter and said it would be a "deeper" one, meaning the update would analyze deeper pages of your site in addition to the homepage (Penguin 1.0 targeted mostly site's homepage).

If your site got penalized, you'd most likely receive an alert in your Google Webmaster account. To recover from the Penguin penalty, make sure:

-you clean up all unnatural backlinks (e.g. wit too much keyword rich anchor text, reciprocal linking, linking networks, etc.)
-disavow potentially harmful links
- send out a reconsideration request

The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

This update was aimed at bringing the diversity of search results to users, which means that Google started showing fewer results from one and the same domain on a search engine results page.

Another considerable Panda update rolled out, affecting more searches than other Panda refreshes.

This update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

Exact match domains with thin low content had a drop in rankings for the targeted exact match keywords. This algorithm update wasn't related to either Penguin and Panda and affected 0.6% of U.S. English searches.

A substantial Panda update rolled out, affecting 2.4% of English searches.

This update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

Using the Copyright Violation Filter Google starts lowering rankings of the sites that get repeated copyright removal notices. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to regain its previous place in the SERPs.

The new version of Google Panda was rolled out.

This update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

Google introduced a new type of search results, Knowledge Graph, giving it a separate box in the top right corner of the page. Basically, it gives some summarized data for popular queries, usually persons, places and events/things. The introduction of the Knowledge Graph is seen as one more step towards the semantic Web.

Google Penguin algorithm introduced, The update targets sites using unnatural link building schemes. If your site was penalized, you'd most likely receive an alert in your Google Webmaster account.

To recover from the Penguin penalty, make sure to:

- clean up all unnatural backlinks (e.g. with overoptimized keyword rich anchor text, reciprocal linking, linking networks, etc.)
- disavow potentially harmful links
- send a reconsideration request to Google

The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

This algorithm affected mainly sites with high ad-to-content ratios at the top of their pages.

To recover from this penalty, a site needs to have a reduced number of ads above the fold and increased amount of visible content.

This update was designed by Google to deliver the freshest data when it is required by the nature of the searcher's query.

Thus, after the update, fresh pages got a certain ranking boost for queries related to frequently changing information, or information on hot topics, events, and trends.

Another major Google Panda update rolled out affecting 6-9% of international results in most languages.

This update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

Google, Bing, and Yahoo introduced the set of special semantic formatting for websites - "Schema.org"

Webmasters can use structured data markup to get rich snippets (and possibly more clicks!) for their pages in search results. This is especially true for certain sites' categories: recipes, reviews, events, places, etc.

Another Google Panda Update rolled out worldwide, now hitting both big and smaller sites. This update included some new behavioral signals. For instance, if a website was blocked by many Google searchers (with their Chrome extension or personalization options on search results pages).

The update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. You won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster account. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic. Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.

The first Google Panda update rolled out, affecting around 12% of all US searches, which makes it the most significant Panda update so far.

This update aims to lower the rankings of low-quality sites with thin content. If your site has been hit by Panda, you'll spot the sudden drop in traffic, but won't receive any notification in your Google Webmaster’s account.

Sites that got hit most included domains with scraped content, excessive advertising, duplicate content issues, etc. The affected website must wait until the next data refresh in order to be regain its previous place in the SERPs.