How do Google algorithm updates affect website rankings and SEO per­for­mance?

Google updates are designed to improve search results and are essential for a website’s SEO ranking. Sig­nif­i­cant changes to the Google algorithm are made multiple times a year; however, the scope of changes and their impact are not known in advance.

Current updates at a glance

When was the last Google update? Who was affected, and what impact did it have? These questions are answered in the following brief overview of the latest updates.

30.06.2025 – June 2025 Core Update

The June 2025 Core Update had a rollout phase of 16 days. Google continued the path set by the previous update: High-quality, and es­pe­cial­ly unique content, should be rewarded by the al­go­rithms. This was in response to the numerous AI-generated contents that merely summarize or para­phrase existing content. It is assumed that Google’s own de­vel­op­ments in AI played a role here, es­pe­cial­ly as AI Overviews now directly display summaries in search results. For this, Google’s AI relies on content with a lot of expertise.

13.03.2025 – March 2025 Core Update

The first core update of the year primarily aimed to reward high-quality content. Pages that were mainly online with au­to­mat­i­cal­ly generated content (e.g., via AI) ex­pe­ri­enced no­tice­able losses in vis­i­bil­i­ty.

There was also movement in the rankings for pages with user-generated content. Many forums saw sig­nif­i­cant losses. This update counters a trend from recent years, where community content was favored by the ranking al­go­rithms. In­ter­est­ing­ly, Reddit received a sig­nif­i­cant boost and now appears promi­nent­ly in search results with its various sub­red­dits.

12.12.2024 – December 2024 Core Update

Just a month after the November core update, Google released the fourth and final major algorithm update of the year on December 12. In an an­nounce­ment on X, the search engine giant explained the rapid sequence of updates by stating that there are various core systems that they con­tin­u­ous­ly want to update. At the Search Central Live event in Zurich, they also announced that a faster core update cycle would become the standard in the future.

11.11.2024 – November 2024 Core Update

On November 11, the 23-day rollout of the third core update of 2024 began. Google did not provide specific details about the back­ground or goals of this update, but it is assumed that the update continued the work of the previous core update.

15.08.2024 – August 2024 Core Update

On August 15, 2024, Google released another core update, including an ex­plana­to­ry blog post by John Mueller. This update aimed to further improve search results, in­cor­po­rat­ing feedback from authors and users, par­tic­u­lar­ly following the previous update for Helpful Content in September 2023.

05.03.2024 – March 2024 Core Update

In March 2024, Google released a core update that was notably more complex than many previous updates, involving changes to various core systems. The main goal of the update was to improve the quality of Google Search by reducing the display of content that was designed merely to generate clicks. Con­se­quent­ly, the rollout phase lasted a total of 45 days. According to Google, they were able to reduce the number of low-quality and non-original search results by about 45%. A summary of the changes can be found in the blog article on the March 2024 Core Update.

05.03.2024 – March 2024 Spam Update

On March 5, 2024, Google also made ad­just­ments to the spam guide­lines for Google Web Search, re­spond­ing to increased com­plaints about the rising number of spam results. The spam update addressed three main issues:

• Abuse of expired domains: An expired domain is used to publish content that offers little or no value to users, with the sole aim of ex­ploit­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of the expired domain for ranking purposes.
• Abuse of mass-generated content: A large number of non-original content is created, providing little or no value. It does not matter whether this content is generated through au­toma­tion (AI), human efforts, or a com­bi­na­tion of both.
• Abuse of website rep­u­ta­tion: Abuse of a website’s rep­u­ta­tion occurs when third-party pages are published with little or no control by the primary website owner. This aims to ma­nip­u­late search rankings by ex­ploit­ing the ranking signals of the primary website.

08.11.2023 – November 2023 Reviews Update

In parallel with the core update, Google also released another update in November 2023 for eval­u­at­ing reviews. High-quality reviews with in­sight­ful analyses, par­tic­u­lar­ly those written by experts, are now expected to have an even more sig­nif­i­cant impact on rankings.

The eval­u­a­tion occurs at the page level: Content such as articles, blog posts, or similar stand­alone pieces that include rec­om­men­da­tions, opinions, or analyses are crawled and rated ac­cord­ing­ly. The rollout of the November 2023 Reviews update lasted a total of 29 days.

02.11.2023 – November 2023 Core Update

The rollout of the fourth and final core update of 2023 lasted an unusually long 25 days. There was no specific reason given for the long duration, but the Google update had the typical goal of improving the provision of valuable and reliable search results for users.

05.10.2023 – October 2023 Core Update

On October 5, the third core update of 2023 was released. It did not bring any par­tic­u­lar changes but focused on op­ti­miz­ing the algorithm’s content crawling. The rollout took two weeks.

14.09.2024 – September 2023 Helpful Content Update

Nearly a year after the last Helpful Content Update, Google released the next update in this area in September 2023. One of the key points was Google’s revised stance that AI-generated content is not in­her­ent­ly bad. Pre­vi­ous­ly, it was clearly stated that Helpful Content must be created by humans, but the search engine giant revised this fact with the new update.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Google clarified in the update that the date of the last content update should only be adjusted if sig­nif­i­cant changes have been made. A detailed summary of the ad­just­ments can be found in the SISTRIX blog post on the September 2023 Helpful Content Update.

22.08.2023 – August 2023 Core Update

In the second core update of 2023, the main focus was on improving how Google evaluates content overall. The changes resulted in some pages that were pre­vi­ous­ly un­der­ap­pre­ci­at­ed per­form­ing much better in search results – or con­verse­ly, the opposite effect occurred. The rollout was completed on September 7, 2023.

12.04.2023 – April 2023 Reviews Update

The Reviews update from April 2023 is a sig­nif­i­cant algorithm update regarding the eval­u­a­tion of product, service, des­ti­na­tion, game, movie, and similar reviews. It aims to improve user ex­pe­ri­ence and search results by making relevant in­for­ma­tion from product and service reviews more easily dis­cov­er­able. As part of this algorithm change, Google also referred to its guide­lines for writing high-quality reviews.

15.03.2023 – March 2023 Core Update

The first core update of 2023 took place in the first quarter. This algorithm update, which improves the eval­u­a­tion of content by Google’s systems overall, affected all content types in all regions and languages.

For website owners, the core update meant the following: High-quality websites with helpful content, good user ex­pe­ri­ence, and strong E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Author­i­ta­tive­ness, and Trust­wor­thi­ness) were even more in focus.

21.02.2023 – February 2023 Product Reviews Update

The global rollout of the algorithm ad­just­ment for product reviews, which started at the end of 2022, began on February 21, 2023. The rollout lasted about two weeks and affected languages including English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian.

05.12.2022 – December 2022 Helpful Content Update

The second Helpful Content update was released by Google on December 5, 2022, and rolled out over about four weeks in all languages. This update was designed to reward helpful content in search results and penalize websites with low-quality or spammy content.

20.09.2022 – September 2022 Product Reviews Algorithm Update

The algorithm update from September 2022 aimed to improve the accuracy and relevance of product reviews in English-language SERPs. The trust­wor­thi­ness of reviews was evaluated based on a com­bi­na­tion of factors, including user reviews, review content, and expert opinions.

12.09.2022 – September 2022 Core Update

In September, another core update from Google was rolled out. This update mainly aimed at improving the user ex­pe­ri­ence and re­in­forc­ing the impact of the previous Helpful Content update.

25.08.2022 – August 2022 Helpful Content Update

With the Helpful Content update, Google in­tro­duced another algorithm update. This update was designed to ensure that websites with a good user ex­pe­ri­ence are preferred in search results. For this, Google in­tro­duced a com­plete­ly new SEO ranking signal. The signal is intended to evaluate the website as a whole. This means that in­di­vid­ual pages’ content is no longer con­sid­ered in isolation. Initially, the update only affected English-language sites but will gradually expand to other languages. More in­for­ma­tion about the Helpful Content Update can be found on Google’s Developer Blog.

25.05.2022 – May 2022 Core Update

The first core update of 2022 was rolled out in the first half of the year: In May 2022, Google launched the update to further improve search results. Video websites like TikTok saw an increase in vis­i­bil­i­ty. Another trend is emerging with spe­cial­ized niche websites: these are now ranked better than websites covering broad topic areas. This suggests that Google’s algorithm can now better recognize spe­cial­ists in a par­tic­u­lar field and is stronger in terms of EAT.

23.03.2022 – March 2022 Product Reviews Update

Another major update in 2022 only affected English-language sites. Just like the previous year’s update, it was designed to give more weight to reviews when ranking websites. Websites with high-quality reviews were given pref­er­ence.

22.02.2022 – Page Ex­pe­ri­ence Update

The Page Ex­pe­ri­ence update from Google was pre­vi­ous­ly in­tro­duced for mobile rankings. At the end of February to early March 2022, the rollout for desktop websites followed. Factors such as First Input Delay (FID) and HTTPS security are now con­sid­ered in rankings.

01.12.2021 – December 2021 Product Reviews Update

The Product Reviews update at the end of 2021 focused on customer reviews on websites. Websites with mean­ing­ful and high-quality reviews should be rewarded and ranked higher by this update.

17.11.2021 – November 2021 Core Update

Google’s second core update in 2021 took place in November. Given the ap­proach­ing Black Friday, which is typically a major sales event for eCommerce, the timing of the update was somewhat sur­pris­ing. Due to ranking fluc­tu­a­tions that usually follow the rollout of a core update, website owners feared revenue losses.

03.11.2021 – November Spam Update

The second spam update in 2021 aimed to combat spammy sites. Sites that follow search best practices should not be affected by the update.

26.07.2021 – Link Spam Algorithm Update

The link spam algorithm update at the end of July was designed to limit spam links to improve the quality of search results. This algorithm update specif­i­cal­ly targets spam-like backlinks. It aims to prevent websites with shady backlinks from gaining ranking ad­van­tages. Affiliate links are not specif­i­cal­ly affected. De­vel­op­ers can find more in­for­ma­tion about the changes and link-building practices in Google’s Developer Blog.

01.07.2021 – July 2021 Core Update

The core update in July was an extension of the previous month’s core update and completes the Google core update from mid-2021. Notably, the changes led to pages that had pre­vi­ous­ly been ranked lower due to past updates now per­form­ing better. It is likely that Google removed or at least weakened factors from the core update in 2019.

23. and 28.06.2021 – June Spam Update

In June, not only a core update took place, but also a spam update split into two parts. The update aimed to target pages under suspicion of spam. This par­tic­u­lar­ly affected websites engaging in phishing attempts or infected with malware. Pages providing copied or au­to­mat­i­cal­ly generated content or par­tic­i­pat­ing in link exchange programs were also listed as spam.

02.06.2021 – June 2021 Core Update

After the pre­vi­ous­ly announced Page Ex­pe­ri­ence update was delayed to mid-June 2021, the next core update was rolled out on June 2. All previous in­di­ca­tions from Google regarding core updates apply to this update as well. It will take one to two weeks to fully roll it out. In con­nec­tion with the an­nounce­ment of the update, Google pointed to a new blog post published on the same day. This post explains again how Google aims to improve search with these updates and the role core updates play in this.

May 2021 – Google Core Web Vitals Update

Although May 2021 had not yet arrived, the first official update for the year 2021 was already on the horizon. In May 2021, Google plans to introduce the Core Web Vitals, which will consider user ex­pe­ri­ence more strongly for ranking pages. This Google update is expected to have a no­tice­able impact on search results in the future. For more details, you can read an in-depth article on Google Core Web Vitals.

03.12.2020 – December 2020 Core Update

The last official core update for 2020 was released by Google somewhat sur­pris­ing­ly in December. It was un­ex­pect­ed because the Christmas season is a crucial time for many eCommerce websites, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in search results could cause frus­tra­tion among those re­spon­si­ble. The update was announced via X by Google’s official account Google Search­Li­ai­son.

As with previous Google core updates, there were no specific guide­lines on how website owners should react if their site was neg­a­tive­ly affected by this update. Google simply referred to the very general article on the topic.

04.05.2020 – May 2020 Core Update

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, Google continued its work on its algorithm. The search engine giant announced the “May 2020 Core update” on May 4. A few hours later, the rollout began, which, according to Google, could take up to two weeks for its effects to be visible every­where. As with the last major Google updates, Google of­fi­cial­ly announced the May 2020 Core Update again via X.

13.01.2020 – January 2020 Core Update

The year 2020 had barely begun, and Google surprised web­mas­ters with a new core update. On the official Google Search­Li­ai­son X account, Google announced the new “January 2020 Core update.” All previous general guide­lines for Google core updates also applied to the January 2020 Core update.

BERT Update

After the core updates this year, Google made another major change at the end of 2019 with the BERT update. Google in­tro­duced one of the most sig­nif­i­cant changes since the in­tro­duc­tion of RankBrain about five years ago. In a blog post, the company of­fi­cial­ly announced the BERT update. BERT stands for Bidi­rec­tion­al Encoder Rep­re­sen­ta­tions from Trans­form­ers and is a neural network-based technique for Natural Language Pro­cess­ing (NLP) pre-training. The company first in­tro­duced this technique in a blog post in November 2018 and has made it open source.

BERT aims to better un­der­stand user queries. For example, it now rec­og­nizes and accounts for the context of a given word more ac­cu­rate­ly. Prepo­si­tions like “for” or “to” are now more central to the algorithm’s analysis.

Google initially rolled out the BERT update for the English language, with plans to expand it to other languages. According to Google, the update delivers sig­nif­i­cant­ly better results for one in ten queries in the U.S. Although this may sound like a small portion of search queries, it is actually a sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment. The blog post provides il­lus­tra­tive examples.

In addition to regular search results, Google also applies the BERT update to improve featured snippets, those short answers that oc­ca­sion­al­ly appear above the regular search results. Google says the BERT update already delivers better results in over 20 countries, ex­plic­it­ly naming Korean, Hindi, and Por­tuguese.

While Google views the new BERT update as a big step toward better language un­der­stand­ing for its users, the company ac­knowl­edges that many queries still do not return the perfect result. As such, it announces that language pro­cess­ing is far from complete and further im­prove­ments can be expected over time.

24.09.2019 – September 2019 Core Update

After Google started actively com­mu­ni­cat­ing major core updates, web­mas­ters eagerly awaited when the next update would roll out. About three months after the last core update, the “September 2019 Core update” was released, marking the third core update of the year. Google main­tained the three-month rhythm for the current year. The update was announced via the official X account for webmaster com­mu­ni­ca­tion, “Google Search­Li­ai­son.”

As with previous updates, Google did not provide much detail on the changes in­tro­duced by the update. Instead, they referred to the Webmaster Central blog post as a guide for all affected by the update. SEO tool provider Sistrix reported that travel sites were par­tic­u­lar­ly impacted in Germany and Spain. Health-related websites were also affected, as in the case of the last major Google update.

03.06.2019 – June 2019 Core Update

The latest Google update for 2019 revealed one thing above all: Google is in­creas­ing­ly striving to be at least somewhat more trans­par­ent. Google not only announced the core update a day earlier but also gave it an official name: “June 2019 Core update” – a rarity until now.

With this in­for­ma­tion, the company is of course avoiding many spec­u­la­tions but, as usual, remains reserved about further details sur­round­ing the update. Which levers Google adjusted in the algorithm and how web­mas­ters should respond remains a mystery, as the search engine giant keeps that in­for­ma­tion to itself.

12.03.2019 – March 2019 Core Update

On March 12th, Google confirmed its first official update for 2019. Like previous confirmed Google updates, this was a core update. Google named the update the “March 2019 Core update” because other confusing terms, such as “Florida 2 update,” were cir­cu­lat­ing in the webmaster community. According to Google, this update has nothing to do with the previous Florida update:

As this is another core update, Google’s rec­om­men­da­tion on how website owners should respond remains unchanged (see further details below in this post).

According to Google rep­re­sen­ta­tive Danny Sullivan, this is the third core update since Google began of­fi­cial­ly con­firm­ing major updates. It was rolled out worldwide, and the rollout was expected to take about a week or longer.

08.10.2018 – Medic Update 2

In mid-August, the update mis­lead­ing­ly titled “Medic update” caused a stir in the Google search results. Some websites lost vis­i­bil­i­ty by up to 80%. But as in games, for every loser, there are also winners. Countless website owners saw their vis­i­bil­i­ty increase sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Google only commented that an update had taken place, but did not disclose what changes had been made to the algorithm. This sparked a lot of spec­u­la­tion about what ad­just­ments Google had made and how affected website owners should respond. More on the “Medic update” topic is available below.

With the new update around October 8, 2018, which the industry simply calls Medic update 2 (even though the name is in­ac­cu­rate, it was kept for sim­plic­i­ty), it seems Google partially reversed or softened the changes made by the first Medic update.

As with the first Medic update, websites with sensitive topics (such as money, life, health, finance, insurance, etc.) were par­tic­u­lar­ly affected. In­ter­est­ing­ly, websites whose web­mas­ters did not take any specific actions also recovered. The Medic update 2 thus demon­strates once again that Google makes mistakes, and they attempt to fix these with future updates.

29.09.2018 – Small Core Algorithm Update

After the Medic update caused some losers but also many winners, the next smaller Google-confirmed update occurred around September 29, 2018. In the con­fir­ma­tion tweet by Danny Sullivan, he reaf­firmed that the Google Core Algorithm is con­stant­ly being updated. Even though Sullivan referred to it as a “smaller” update, re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­u­als saw sig­nif­i­cant changes in their website’s vis­i­bil­i­ty index.

13.08.2018 – Medic Update

To clarify, the Medic update doesn’t live up to its name. It once again shows how difficult and mis­lead­ing external analyses of Google updates can be. The name “Medic update” orig­i­nat­ed in the SEO community, as initial analyses suggested that websites in the medical field were mainly affected by this Google update. Google of­fi­cial­ly refuted this con­clu­sion through Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes, who announced at the Search Masters Brazil event that it was primarily websites in the health industry that were hit “by pure co­in­ci­dence.” Just a few days earlier, the official Google spokesper­son Danny Sullivan confirmed that this update was a “Broad Core Update” affecting “all search queries.”

While the name “Medic update” is somewhat mis­lead­ing, the core of the as­sump­tion might still be valid: websites where trust plays an important role are par­tic­u­lar­ly affected. Google refers to this criterion using the ab­bre­vi­a­tion E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Author­i­ta­tive­ness, and Trust­wor­thi­ness. These three criteria are par­tic­u­lar­ly relevant for websites with a YMYL context, where YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life. In other words, it includes websites that influence the finances, health, sat­is­fac­tion, or safety of a user through their in­for­ma­tion.

If you were affected by the Medic update, it’s rec­om­mend­ed to check the official Google Quality Rater Guide­lines. This internal guide is meant to help human Google Quality Raters evaluate how a website should be struc­tured and what it should look like from Google’s per­spec­tive. For health topics, it should be clear who the author is and what qual­i­fi­ca­tions they have.

01.08.2018 – Core Algorithm Update

The third major core algorithm update of 2018 took place on August 1, 2018. Google of­fi­cial­ly confirmed via X that this was a “broad core algorithm update.” In the tweet, they also ref­er­enced previous tips on how website owners should respond to such an update (see the tweets further down in the article). Official Google rep­re­sen­ta­tive Danny Sullivan confirmed once again that the recent ranking shifts were indeed a result of a Google update. He ref­er­enced the following tweet:

Even with this Google update, Sullivan reaf­firmed that with certain updates, Google would inform web­mas­ters when there’s something specific they can change. In this case, however, website owners cannot fix anything specific to po­ten­tial­ly reverse ranking losses. Google aims to prevent web­mas­ters from at­tempt­ing to “fix” things that aren’t broken. Sullivan further em­pha­sized that the key to success lies in great content. (He also admitted that it was “the same boring answer” as before.)

16.04.2018 – Core Algorithm Update

After a larger core algorithm update in March of this year, Google followed up in April. They announced via X that another major core algorithm update was rolled out on April 16, 2018. For back­ground in­for­ma­tion, Google referred to the tweet about the March update.

07.03.2018 – Core Algorithm Update

A sig­nif­i­cant Google update occurred on March 7, 2018. The official X account @search­li­ai­son confirmed on March 12 that a major update had indeed taken place:

This Core Algorithm update is one of the larger updates that Google makes only a few times a year. In these updates, the company makes changes directly at the heart of the Google algorithm. Ac­cord­ing­ly, many websites are affected, and the impact is felt and visible worldwide. Google has kept the specifics of what changes were made to itself. It is virtually im­pos­si­ble for website owners to respond directly to this update. In another tweet about the March update, Google only explained that pre­vi­ous­ly un­der­per­form­ing websites benefited from this update. For all the losers of this update who have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing traffic drops and vis­i­bil­i­ty issues since March 2018, Google has also issued a statement: There’s nothing wrong with these sites. There’s no “fix” except focusing on providing great content.

No specific name has been assigned to the March 7, 2018 update, unlike previous updates in past years.

In the Webmaster Hangout from April 6, 2018, John Mueller clarified that this update was less focused on quality and more on relevance. To increase your site’s relevance, Mueller rec­om­mends asking users what could be improved to make the website better. He also em­pha­sized always checking the technical details, such as whether the page is still being crawled by Googlebot.

Why does Google change its algorithm?

The purpose of Google’s algorithm changes, often referred to as Google updates, is to improve the quality of search results, ensuring users only see relevant and high-quality content. A few years ago – before Panda, Penguin, and others – it was easier for website owners to ma­nip­u­late search engine results. Various SEO practices (now called Black-Hat SEO) were used to feign relevance and achieve a good ranking. Common tactics included keyword stuffing or cloaking.

But Google is gradually working to eliminate these deceptive practices in order to show only truly relevant content at the top. Algorithm changes aim to combat spam practices and poor SEO methods. The Google algorithm de­ter­mines a page’s relevance in the Google index – and con­se­quent­ly its placement in the search results.

Google now considers around 200 different Google Ranking Factors to assess the quality and relevance of a page. When an update is planned, Google tweaks certain factors, adjusting the algorithm with varying degrees of impact. Google updates can:

• change the weighting of existing factors
• or introduce new factors.

Impact of Google updates

The impact of updates on search results and a website’s vis­i­bil­i­ty can vary in strength. The easiest way to track if you’ve been affected by an update is by using the SISTRIX Vis­i­bil­i­ty Index. Through the SEO tool, you can track vis­i­bil­i­ty over time. Google now publicly shares major updates, so you can track in the timeline whether ranking losses are due to an update. Of course, websites can also benefit from updates. SISTRIX marks important Google updates with a small pin on the graph. If vis­i­bil­i­ty drops right after an update, it indicates a negative rating from the updated algorithm. However, beware: an automatic update isn’t always to blame for a loss in ranking. Technical issues such as un­reach­able content or faulty redirects can also quickly damage rankings.

SISTRIX also offers a special Google Update Checker. By entering your URL, you can see the impact of all known Google updates over time, with per­cent­age changes.

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The most important Google updates in recent years

Experts have counted over 40 updates to the Google algorithm since 2009. A list can be found on the SISTRIX page above. Below are the 5 updates with the biggest impact for website owners.

2011: Panda Update

The first rollout of the Panda update took place in February 2011 in the USA. Panda was orig­i­nal­ly conceived as a regular filter, but it has since become a permanent part of Google’s core algorithm. While “the Panda” is not active in real-time, it ensures con­tin­u­ous quality control of search results.

What is the goal of the Panda update?

The primary goal of the Panda update is to reduce the vis­i­bil­i­ty of websites with low-quality content and show users pages with relevant and high-quality content in the search results. The update helps identify pages with poor content or spammy content (e.g., content farms) and, unlike previous updates, affects entire websites or sections, not just in­di­vid­ual pages.

Websites are assigned a Content Quality Score based on their content, which in­flu­ences the ranking. Google has not disclosed the exact criteria for this score, but SEO experts have found that the following factors neg­a­tive­ly impact a page’s vis­i­bil­i­ty:

• High pro­por­tion of duplicate content (Duplicate Content)
• Low pro­por­tion of original content (Unique Content)
• Low-quality, content-less material
• Short dwell time
• High bounce rate
• Spammy content
• Excessive ads
• Over-op­ti­miza­tion of content, e.g., keyword stuffing

Who was affected by the Panda update?

The Panda update primarily affected sites with content that provided no real value to users. This included content farms, which focused on quantity over quality to generate clicks. Also, link farms, which were wide­spread a few years ago and were only designed to build backlinks without providing actual content, were also neg­a­tive­ly impacted. This is why the update is also known in SEO circles as the Farmer update.

According to Google, the Panda update affected 12% of search results in the USA. Some sites ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant ranking losses of up to 86%. Of course, there were also winners, par­tic­u­lar­ly media and news sites.

2012: Penguin Update

The worldwide rollout for the first Penguin update occurred in April 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, there were five algorithm updates and “Data Refresh” rounds (database updates).

What is the goal of the Penguin update?

The Penguin update is often referred to as the Web Spam update. This is because its primary goal is to curb web spam in the search results to improve the relevance and quality of those results.

By web spam, Google primarily refers to un­scrupu­lous practices used to ar­ti­fi­cial­ly improve search engine rankings. A website that is optimized solely for the search engine and not for the user should not appear in the top search results, according to Google. The main task of the Penguin update is to identify unnatural page op­ti­miza­tion and curb in­ten­tion­al ma­nip­u­la­tion.

Who was affected by the Penguin update?

As with the Panda update, Black-Hat SEO practices such as keyword stuffing or cloaking were targeted. There is no official con­fir­ma­tion from Google regarding which variables were used for this algorithm change, but the analysis of “Penguin losers” clearly pointed to unnatural link-building as the focus.

Practices that violated Google’s webmaster guide­lines and were specif­i­cal­ly penalized by the Penguin update include:

• Buying links, e.g., through link networks
• Unnatural rapid link building
• High per­cent­age of links with hard money keywords in anchor text
• Links from ir­rel­e­vant sources
• Low-quality backlinks from link farms, di­rec­to­ries, comments, or footers

Websites whose link profile showed signs of these practices were penalized by Google with lower rankings. According to the company, 3.1% of all English-language search queries were affected by the first Penguin update. For the Penguin 2.0 update in May 2013, about 2.3% of US search queries were affected.

2013: Hum­ming­bird Update

Co­in­cid­ing with Google’s 15th an­niver­sary in 2013, the Hum­ming­bird update was in­tro­duced, which some experts consider the most sig­nif­i­cant update since 2000. With the Hum­ming­bird update, not just the ranking algorithm, but the entire search algorithm was changed. Hum­ming­bird and its char­ac­ter­is­tics—speed and precision—are meant to define Google’s search in the future.

What is the goal of the Hum­ming­bird update?

The Hum­ming­bird update optimized Google’s own eval­u­a­tion process for search queries. Until then, in­di­vid­ual words or word com­bi­na­tions were recorded and evaluated in a static manner, without con­sid­er­ing the context. The new search method is called semantic search, as it no longer considers just in­di­vid­ual keywords but the entire query. The goal is to better un­der­stand the user’s search intent and interpret their search queries in a more mean­ing­ful way.

Keywords are still very important, but con­sid­er­ing the full query, their specific context is also taken into account, allowing Google to answer targeted questions more ef­fec­tive­ly. Since Hum­ming­bird, synonyms are also con­sid­ered. Search result lists are therefore no longer as focused on a single keyword; even the­mat­i­cal­ly relevant content that does not nec­es­sar­i­ly contain the exact keyword can rank well.

Who was affected by the Hum­ming­bird update?

As with other updates, the “bad actors” in the SEO world, who used tricks to ar­ti­fi­cial­ly improve their ranking, were affected by Hum­ming­bird. Websites that did not provide valuable, high-quality content were primarily affected. If exact keyword op­ti­miza­tion or keyword stuffing and a poor user ex­pe­ri­ence were also present, the site was pushed far down the rankings. In contrast, websites that delivered valuable, in­for­ma­tive content were rewarded. The new search algorithm affected nearly 90% of search results, according to Google.

2014: Pigeon Update

In 2014, the Pigeon update in­tro­duced the biggest change in the Google ecosystem. This update to the local search algorithm was rolled out in July in the US, and during the holiday season, it was in­tro­duced in other countries. With Pigeon, Google aimed to integrate local search more closely with its general algorithm, de­liv­er­ing even more useful and relevant results in local contexts. Not only did the location of the searcher become more in­flu­en­tial in search results, but the im­por­tance of Google+ and Google My Business profiles also increased. This opened up new op­por­tu­ni­ties for local SMEs to attract customers through Local SEO. The Pigeon update impacted both Google Maps and regular search results, though its effects were not as dramatic as other updates. However, it still had a sig­nif­i­cant impact, as many busi­ness­es adapted their strate­gies post-rollout. In par­tic­u­lar, local SMEs and large companies with multiple locations began focusing more on local search engine op­ti­miza­tion.

2015: Google Mobile Update

Until 2015, the mobile web search results mirrored the desktop version. In April 2015, Google of­fi­cial­ly confirmed the Mobile-Friendly update, often referred to as “Mo­bi­leged­don.” Mobile search has since become more au­tonomous, taking into account the usability of mobile websites and apps. This algorithm change only affects mobile search queries.

What is the goal of the Google Mobile update?

With the Mobile update, Google began to penalize mobile-un­friend­ly websites in mobile search. Websites that are optimized for mobile devices benefit from this change in the cal­cu­la­tion. The goal is to show users only pages that are mobile-friendly and have good usability in the top positions. Therefore, usability on smart­phones and tablets became an official ranking factor. Various factors influence usability on mobile devices—read more in our guide on op­ti­miz­ing a website for mobile.

Who was affected by the Mobile update?

Unlike the severe penalties and ranking losses from the Panda or Penguin updates, the Mobile Update did not lead to major penalties. However, website owners should not become com­pla­cent. Mobile op­ti­miza­tion of websites (and es­pe­cial­ly online stores) is now a must. Google has now received more queries from smart­phones and tablets than from desktop PCs. So, anyone who wants to continue gen­er­at­ing traffic through organic search should optimize for mobile devices. Sites that are not optimized for mobile devices will not only see lower rankings but will also have a clear warning that the website is not mobile-friendly, which is a deterrent for many users.

The ongoing impact of Google updates and the un­cer­tain­ty they bring

Google updates are both a curse and a blessing – a curse for website owners who have been affected by a penalty and who may ex­pe­ri­ence the aftermath for months. The Google algorithm being con­tin­u­ous­ly improved and expanded, however, is a blessing for users, allowing them to make better and more efficient use of Google as a search engine.

The big challenge, even for ex­pe­ri­enced SEO spe­cial­ists, lies in the many unknowns when dealing with Google. Often, the company im­ple­ments algorithm changes without providing specific in­for­ma­tion about the content. Such unnamed updates are often referred to as phantom updates. The effects are no­tice­able, and many causes remain a mystery to this day. This will not change in the future, and further updates – whether official or phantom – will ensure that work in SEO remains in constant flux and the op­ti­miza­tion needs of websites are never fully addressed.