Google algorithm change History
Google changes its algorithm 500-600 time in each year. That affect search result in significant ways.
these google updates can help the users to change the rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve
Search engine optimization.
Major updates of google are these,
*
Updates started in 2000 December, Its name google toolbar.Guaranteeing SEO arguments for years to come,google launched thei
r browser toolbar, and with it, Toolbar
PageRank(TBPR). As soon as webmasters started watching TBPR.
*Second Update in 2002 September, its known as first document update. Before "Boston" It is the first named update in 2002,There was a major shuffle in the fall of 2002. The details are unclear,But this appeared to be more than monthly google dance and page-rank update.
*
Updates in2003
Boston-Feb 2003
This was the first named google updates. google aimed at a major monthly update so the first few updates were a combination of algorithm changes and major index refreshes. As updates became more frequent, the monthly idea quickly died.
Cassandra- April 2003
cassandra also came down hard on hidden text and hidden links. Google cracked down on some basic link quality issues, such as massive linking from co-owned domains.
Dominic- may 2003
While many changes were observed in may, the exact nature of dominic was unclear.Google freshbot and deepcrawler scoured the web, and many sites reported bounces. the way google counted or reported backlink seemed to change dramaticaly.
Esmeralda- june 2003
It probably heralded some major infrastructure changes at google. This marked the last of the regular monthly google updates as a more continuous update process began to emerge. the google dance was replaced with everflux.
fritz- July 2003
The monthly google dance finally came to an end with the fritz update.instead of completely over hauling the index on a roughly monthly basis,google switched to an incremental approach. the index was now changing daily.
supplemental index- September 2003
In order to index more documents without sacrificing performance, google split off some results into the supplemental index. the perils of having results go supplemental become a hotly debated
seo topic, until the index was later reintegrated.
*
Updates in 2004
Austin- January 2004
google continued to crack down on deceptive on page tactis, including invisible text and meta tag suffering. Some speculated that google put the hilltop algorithm into play and began to take page relevance seriously.
Brandy- feb 2004
google played out a variety of changes, including a massive index expansion, latent semantic indexing, increased attention to
anchortext relevance and concept of link neighborhoods.
*
updates in 2005
Nofollow- January 2005
it helps clean up unvouched for links, including
spammy blog comments. while not a traditional algorithm update, this change gradually has a significant impact on link graph.
Allegra- February 2005
Bourbon- May 2005
Google introduced that Google was rolling out "something like 3.5 changes in
search quality." No one was sure what 0.5 of a change was, but Webmaster
World members speculated that Bourbon changed how duplicate content and
non-canonical (www vs. non-www) URLs were treated.
XML site map- June 2005
Google allowed webmasters to submit XML sitemaps via Webmaster Tools,
bypassing traditional HTML sitemaps, and giving SEOs direct (albeit
minor) influence over crawling and indexation.
Gilligan- September 2005
webmasters saw changes (probably ongoing), but Google claimed no major
algorithm update occurred. Matt Cutts wrote a blog post explaining that
Google updated (at the time) index data daily but Toolbar PR and some
other metrics only once every 3 months.
Jagger- October 2005
Google local/map - October 2005
Big Daddy- December 2005
*
updates in 2006
Supplemental update- November 2006
Throughout 2006, Google seemed to make changes to the supplemental index
and how filtered pages were treated. They claimed in late 2006 that
supplemental was not a penalty.
False alarm- dec2006
*
updates in 2007
Universal search- May 2007
Buffy- June 2007
In honor of Vanessa Fox leaving Google, the "Buffy" update was
christened. No one was quite sure what happened, and
Matt Cutts
suggested that Buffy was just an accumulation of smaller changes.
*
Updates in 2008
Dewey- April 2008
A large-scale shuffle seemed to occur at the end of March and into
early April, but the specifics were unclear. Some suspected Google was
pushing its own internal properties, including Google Books, but the
evidence of that was limited.
Google suggest- august 2008
*Updates in 2009
Rel-canonical Tag- February 2009
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo jointly announced support for the Canonical
Tag, allowing webmasters to send canonicalization signals to search
bots without impacting human visitors.
Vince- February 2009
SEOs reported a major update that seemed to strongly favor big brands.
Matt Cutts called Vince a "minor change", but others felt it had
profound, long-term implications.Caffeine- August 2009
Google released a preview of a massive infrastructure change, designed
to speed crawling, expand the index, and integrate indexation and
ranking in nearly real-time.
Real-time search- December 2009
*
Updates in 2010
Google Places- April 2010
Although "Places" pages were rolled out in September of 2009, they were originally only a part of Google Maps.
May Day- may 2010
In late April and early May, webmasters noticed significant drops in
their long-tail traffic. Matt Cutts later confirmed that May Day was an
algorithm change impacting the long-tail. Sites with large-scale thin
content seemed to be hit especially hard, foreshadowing the Panda
update.
Caffeine-June 2010
After months of testing, Google finished rolling out the Caffeine
infrastructure. Caffeine not only boosted Google's raw speed, but
integrated crawling and indexation much more tightly, resulting in
(according to Google) a 50% fresher index.
Brand updates- August 2010
Google instant- September 2010
Social signal- December 2010
Google and Bing confirmed that they use social signals in determining ranking, including data from Twitter and Facebook.
Negative Reviews- December 2010
*
Updates in 2011Overstock .com Penalty- January 2011
In a rare turn of events, a public outing of shady SEO practices by
Overstock.com resulted in a very public Google penalty. JCPenney was hit
with a penalty in February for similar bad behavior.
Attribution Update- January 2011
In response to high-profile spam cases, Google rolled out an update to
help better sort out content attribution and stop scrapers. According to
Matt Cutts, this affected about 2% of queries.
Panda/farmer- Feb23 2011
A major algorithm update hit sites hard, affecting up to 12% of search
results (a number that came directly from Google). Panda seemed to crack
down on thin content, content farms, sites with high ad-to-content
ratios, and a number of other quality issues. Panda rolled out over at
least a couple of months, hitting Europe in April 2011.
The +1 button - march 30 2011
Panda 2.0- may9 2011
Google rolled out the Panda update to all English queries worldwide (not
limited to English-speaking countries). New signals were also
integrated, including data about sites users blocked via the SERPs
directly or the Chrome browser.
Schema.org- June 2 2011
Panda 2.2 - June 21 2011
Google continued to update Panda-impacted sites and data, and version
2.2 was officially acknowledged. Panda updates occurred separately from
the main index and not in real-time, reminiscent of early Google Dance
updates.
Google+ - June 28 2011
Panda 2.3- July 23 2011
Webmaster chatter suggested that Google rolled out yet another update.
It was unclear whether new factors were introduced, or this was simply
an update to the Panda data and ranking factors.
Panda 2.4- August 12 2011
Expanded Sitelinks- August 16
Pagination Elements- September 15
516 algo updates- September 21
Panda 2.5 - september 28
Panda Flux- october 5
"expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks" and gave a
figure of "~2%". Other minor Panda updates occurred on 10/3, 10/13, and
11/18.
Query Encryption- october18
Freshness Update- November3
10- pack of update- november14
This one was a bit unusual. In a bid to be more transparent, Matt Cutts released a post with 10 recent algorithm updates.
Panda 3.1 - November 18
After Panda 2.5, Google entered a period of "Panda Flux" where updates
started to happen more frequently and were relatively minor. Some
industry analysts called the 11/18 update 3.1, even though there was no
official 3.0. For the purposes of this history, we will discontinue
numbering Panda updates except for very high-impact changes.
December 10 pack - December 2011
Google outlined a second set of 10 updates, announcing that these posts would come every month.
*
Updates in 2012
January 30 pack- January 5
Google announced 30 changes over the previous month, including image
search landing-page quality detection, more relevant site-links, more
rich snippets, and related-query improvements.
Search+ your world- jan10
Panda 3.2- January 18
Google confirmed a Panda data update, although suggested that the
algorithm hadn't changed. It was unclear how this fit into the "Panda
Flux" scheme of more frequent data updates.
Ads Above the fold- January 19
February 17 pack- feb3
Google released another round of "search quality highlights" (17 in
all). Many related to speed, freshness, and spell-checking, but one
major announcement was tighter integration of Panda into the main search
index.
Panda 3.3- feb 27
Google rolled out another post-"flux" Panda update, which appeared to be
relatively minor. This came just 3 days after the 1-year anniversary of
Panda, an unprecedented lifespan for a named update.
Venice- feb 27
As part of their monthly update, Google mentioned code-name "Venice".
This local update appeared to more aggressively localize organic results
and more tightly integrate local search data. The exact roll-out date
was unclear.
Panda 3.4 - march 23
Parked domain bug- April 16
After a number of webmasters reported ranking shuffles, Google confirmed
that a data error had caused some domains to be mistakenly treated as
parked domains (and thereby devalued). This was not an intentional
algorithm change.
Panda 3.5- April 19
Penguin- April 24
After weeks of speculation about an "Over-optimization penalty", Google
finally rolled out the "Webspam Update", which was soon after dubbed
"Penguin." Penguin adjusted a number of spam factors, including keyword
stuffing, and impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.
Panda 3.6 - April 27
Knowledge Graph- may 16
Penguin 1.1 - may25
Google rolled out its first targeted data update after the "Penguin"
algorithm update. This confirmed that Penguin data was being processed
outside of the main search index, much like Panda data.
May 39 pack- june7
Google released their monthly Search Highlights, with 39 updates in May.
Panda 3.7- June 8
Google rolled out yet another Panda data update, claiming that less than
1% of queries were affect. Ranking fluctuation data suggested that the
impact was substantially higher than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6).
Panda 3.8- June 8
Google rolled out another Panda data refresh, but this appeared to be
data only (no algorithm changes) and had a much smaller impact than
Panda 3.7.
Link warning- July 19
In a repeat of March/April, Google sent out a large number of unnatural link warnings via Google Webmaster Tools.
Panda 3.9- July 24
A month after Panda 3.8, Google rolled out a new Panda update. Rankings
fluctuated for 5-6 days, although no single day was high enough to stand
out.
DMCA Penalty- august 10
Google announced that they would start penalizing sites with repeat copyright violations, probably via DMCA take down requests.
June/July 86pack - august 2010
7 result SERPs- august 14
Google made a significant change to the Top 10, limiting it to 7 results for many queries.
Panda 3.9.1- August 20
Panda 3.9.2- september18
Google rolled out another Panda refresh, which appears to have been
data-only. Ranking flux was moderate but not on par with a large-scale
algorithm update.
Exact match domain (EMD)update- september 27
Google announced a change in the way it was handling exact-match domains (EMDs).
Panda #20- september 27
Overlapping the EMD update, a fairly major Panda update (algo + data)
rolled out, officially affecting 2.4% of queries. As the 3.X series was
getting odd, industry sources opted to start naming Panda updates
in order (this was the 20th).
August/September 65pack- october4
Penguin#3- october5
After suggesting the next Penguin update would be major, Google released
a minor Penguin data update, impacting "0.3% of queries".
Page Layout #2- October 9
Google introduced an update to its original page layout algorithm change
back in January, which targeted pages with too many ads above the fold.
Panda #21- November5
Google rolled out their 21st Panda update, roughly 5-1/2 weeks after
Panda #20. This update was reported to be smaller, officially impacting
1.1% of English queries.
Panda #22- November21
After some mixed signals, Google confirmed the 22nd Panda update, which
appears to have been data-only. This came on the heels of a larger, but
unnamed update around November 19th.
Knowledge Graph Expansion- december4
Google added Knowledge Graph functionality to non-English queries,
including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and
Italian. This update was "more than just translation" and added enhanced
KG capabilities.
Panda #23- December 23
Right before the Christmas holiday, Google rolled out another Panda
update. They officially called it a "refresh", impacting 1.3% of English
queries. This was a slightly higher impact than Pandas #21 and #22.
*
Updation 2013
Panda #24- january 22
Google announced its first official update of 2013, claiming 1.2% of
queries affected. This did not seem related to talk of an update around
1/17-18
Panda #25- March 14
Matt Cutts re-announced a Panda update at SMX West, and suggested it
would be the last update before Panda was integrated into the core
algorithm.
Phantom- may 9
In the period around May 9th, there were many reports of an algorithm
update. The exact nature of
this update was unknown, but many sites reported significant traffic
loss.
Domain Crowding- may 21
Penguin 2.0- may 22
After months of speculation bordering on hype, the 4th Penguin update
(dubbed "2.0" by Google) arrived with only moderate impact. The exact
nature of the changes were unclear, but some evidence suggested that
Penguin 2.0 was more finely targeted to the page level.
Panda Dance- June 11
While not an actual Panda update, Matt Cutts made an important
clarification at SMX Advanced, suggesting that Panda was still updating
monthly, but each update rolled out over about 10 days.
Payday loan update- June 11
Google announced a targeted algorithm update to take on niches with
notoriously spammy results, specifically mentioning payday loans and
porn.
Multi week update- June 27
Panda recovery- July 18
Google confirmed a Panda update, but it was unclear whether this was one
of the 10-day rolling updates or something new. The implication was
that this was algorithmic and may have "softened" some previous Panda
penalties.
Knowledge Graph expansion- July 19
Unnamed update- July 26
In depth articles- august 6
Hummingbird- august 20
Announced on September 26th, Google suggested that the "Hummingbird"
update rolled out about a month earlier. Our best guess ties it to a
MozCast spike on August 20th and many reports of flux from August 20-22.
Hummingbird has been compared to Caffeine, and seems to be a core
algorithm update that may power changes to semantic search and the
Knowledge Graph for months to come.
Penguin 2.1- october 4
After a 4-1/2 month gap, Google launched another Penguin update. Given
the 2.1 designation, this was probably a data update (primarily) and not
a major change to the Penguin algorithm.
Unnamed update- november 14
Multiple Google trackers picked up unusual activity, which co-occurred
with a report of widespread DNS errors in Google Webmaster Tools. Google
did not confirm an update, and the cause and nature of this flux was
unclear.
Unnamed update- December 17
Almost all global flux trackers registered historically high activity.
Google would not confirm an update, suggesting that they avoid updates
near the holidays.
Authorship Shake up- December 19
As predicted by Matt Cutts at Pubcon Las Vegas, authorship mark-up
disappeared from roughly 15% of queries over a period of about a month.
*
Updates in 2014
Unnamed update- march 24
Major algorithm flux trackers and webmaster chatter spiked around
3/24-3/25, and some speculated that the new, "softer" Panda update had
arrived. Many sites reported ranking changes.
Payday loan2.0- may16
Just prior to Panda 4.0, Google updated it's "payday loan" algorithm, which targets especially spammy queries.
Panda4.0- may 19
Google confirmed a major Panda update that likely included both
an algorithm update and a data refresh. Officially, about 7.5% of
English-language queries were affected.
Payday loan 3.0 - June 12
Less than a month after the Payday Loan 2.0 anti-spam update, Google
launched another major iteration. Official statements suggested that 2.0
targeted specific sites, while 3.0 targeted spammy queries.
Authorship Photo drop- June 28
John Mueller made a surprise announcement (on June 25th) that Google would be dropping all authorship photos from SERPs.
Pigeon- July 24
Google shook the local SEO world with an update that dramatically
altered some local results and modified how they handle and interpret
location cues.
HTTPS/SSL Update- August6
After months of speculation, Google announced that they would be giving
preference to secure sites, and that adding encryption would provide a
"lightweight" rankings boost.
Authorship Removed- August 28
Following up on the June 28th drop of authorship photos, Google
announced that they would be completely removing authorship markup .
Panda4.1- september23
Google announced a significant Panda update, which included an
algorithmic component. They estimated the impact at 3-5% of queries
affected. Given the "slow rollout," the exact timing was unclear.
In the News Box - October 2014
The presence of news results in SERPs also spiked, and major news sites reported substantial traffic changes.
Penguin 3.0- october17
More than a year after the previous Penguin update (2.1), Google
launched a Penguin refresh. This update appeared to be smaller than
expected (<1% of US/English queries affected) and was probably
data-only (not a new Penguin algorithm). The timing of the update was
unclear, especially internationally, and Google claimed it was spread
out over "weeks".
Pirate2.0 - october 21
More than two years after the original DMCA/"Pirate" update, Google
launched another update to combat software and digital media piracy.
This update was highly targeted, causing dramatic drops in ranking to a
relatively small group of sites.
Penguin Everflux- december 10
A Google representative said that Penguin had shifted to continuous
updates, moving away from infrequent, major updates. While the exact
timeline was unclear, this claim seemed to fit ongoing flux after
Penguin 3.0
Pigeon Expands- December 22
Google's major local algorithm update, dubbed "Pigeon", expanded to the
United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The original update hit the
United States in July 2014. The update was confirmed on the 22nd but may
have rolled out as early as the 19th.
*
Updates in 2015
Unnamed Update- February 4
Multiple SERP- trackers and many webmasters reported major flux in Google
SERPs. Speculation ranged from an e-commerce focused update to a mobile
usability update. Google did not officially confirm an update.
Mobile Update AKA
Mobilegeddon- april 22
In a rare move, Google re-announced an algorithm update, telling us
that mobile rankings would differ for mobile-friendly sites starting on
April 21st. The impact of this update was, in the short-term, much
smaller than expected, and our data showed that algorithm flux peaked on
April 22nd.
The Quality Update- May 3
After many reports of large-scale ranking changes, originally dubbed
"Phantom 2", Google acknowledged a core algorithm change impacting
"quality signals". This update seems to have had a broad impact, but
Google didn't reveal any specifics about the nature of the signals
involved.
Panda4.2- July 17
Google announced what was most likely a Panda data refresh, saying that
it could take months to fully roll out. The immediate impact was
unclear, and there were no clear signs of a major algorithm update.
RankBrain- October 26
It revealing that machine learning had been a part of the algorithm for
months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor. *Note:
This is an announcement date - we believe the actual launch was closer
to spring 2015.
*
Updates in 2016
Unnamed Update- January 8
Multiple tracking tools (including MozCast) reported historically-large
rankings movement, which Google later confirmed as a "core algo update".
Google officially said that this was not a Penguin update, but details
remain sketchy.
Adwords Shakeup- February 23
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.
Unnamed major update- may 10
MozCast and other Google weather trackers showed a historically rare
week-long pattern of algorithm activity, including a 97-degree spike.
Google would not confirm this update, and no explanation is currently
available.
Mobile friendly2 - may 12
Just more than a year after the original "mobile friendly" update,
Google rolled out another ranking signal boost to benefit
mobile-friendly sites on mobile search. Since the majority of sites we
track are already mobile-friendly, it's likely the impact of the latest
update was small.
I am already published an article
"A Guide for SEO Beginners" .It is very helpful for start to study about SEO.
