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These days, how we do SEO is somewhat different from a few years ago. One important reason is that search engines have been continuously improving their algorithms to give searchers the best possible results. 

What are Google Algorithms?

Google's algorithms are a complex system used to retrieve data from its search index and instantly deliver the best possible results for a query. The search engine uses algorithms and numerous ranking factors to provide web pages ranked by relevance on its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Over the last decade, Google introduced several updates. As we look into the History of Google Algorithm Updates, each of them has had a significant impact on best practices for SEO. In its early years, Google only made a handful of algorithm updates.

Now, Google makes thousands of changes every year. Most of these updates are so slight that they go entirely unnoticed. Here's a by no means exhaustive list of Google's essential algorithm updates, as well as some of their implications for search and SEO.

List of updates that significantly impacted the SERPs, such as:

1. Florida

2. Big Daddy

3. Jagger

4. Venice Update

5. Penguin

6. Vince

7. Caffeine

8. Panda

9. EMD (Exact Match Domain)

10. Quality Updates

11.RankBrain

12. Fred

13. Freshness Algorithm

14. Page Layout Algorithm

15. Payday

16. Hummingbird

17. Pigeon

18. Mobilegeddon

Advancements in Google SEO Updates

As you can see, Google has become increasingly advanced since the early 2010s. Its significant early updates in the decade focused on battling spammy results and sites trying to cheat the system. But as time progressed, Google SEO Updates contributed more and more to search results catered to giving desktop, mobile and local searchers precisely what they're looking for.

The page experience ranking factor will fit in nicely there. While the algorithm was advanced, the additions over the years, including machine learning and NLP, make it absolutely state of the art.

With the ongoing focus on intent, it seems likely that Google Search will continue to focus its algorithm on perfecting its interpretation of search queries and styling the results pages accordingly. That seems to be their current focus working towards their mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and helpful.

Here is the list of Google algorithm launches, updates, and refreshes that have rolled out over the years:

1. Core Update (22 May 2022)

Google announced via Twitter the release of a broad core update, named the May 2022 Core Update. This is part of a series of updates Google makes to the overall ranking process throughout the year. This update began on 22 May 2022 and was completed on 9 June 2022.

2. Product Algorithm Update (23 March 2022)

Google announced via the Search Central Blog an update to product review rankings that would enable them to identify high-quality reviews. The update should take a few weeks to complete. You can learn more about the quest to provide better product reviews to search users on The Keyword and get Google's advice on how to write high-quality product reviews.

3. Page Experience Update ( March 2022)

Google announced via Twitter that the page experience update is slowly rolling out for desktop search, and it completed in March 2022. Google offers developers more information about the page experience update on Google Search Central.

4. Product Review Update (1 December 2021)

Google announced via the Google Search Central Twitter account that the December 2021 Product Review Update began rolling out for English language pages today and is estimated to take three weeks to complete. 

5. Local Search Update (30 November 2021)

Google announced a November 2021 Local Search Update via Twitter that began on 30 November and was completed on 8 December. Google also suggested that businesses review their guidance on improving local rankings.

6. Broad Core Update (17 November 2021)

Google Search Central announced via Twitter that a broad core update would be released later that day. They referred web admins to their documentation on what site owners need to know about core updates, last updated in August 2019.

7. Google Spam Update (3 November 2021)

According to a tweet from Google Search Liasion, a spam update was rolled out on 11 November 2021 as a part of their regular work to improve search results. They suggested in their announcement that webmasters should continue.

8. Google Link Spam Algorithm Update (26 July 2021)

Google announced an algorithm update aimed at identifying and nullifying link spam was beginning to roll out. Google warned that any sites taking part in link spam tactics could see ranking changes – with sponsored, guest, and affiliate content most likely impacted. Google said the update should be fully rolled out in "at least" two weeks and affect multiple languages.

9. Core Update Completed (12 July 2021)

Google Search Liaison confirmed via Twitter that in July 2021, Core Update would roll out, and it was effectively completed on 12 July.

10. Core Update (1 July 2021)

Google Search Liaison announced via Twitter the July 2021 Core Update is rolling out and will take one to two weeks to complete.

11. Spam Update Part 2 (28 June 2021)

Google Search Liaison announced via Twitter that the second part of their spam update began on 28 June and will likely be completed on the same day. The original announcement referred to a post on the Google Search Central Blog, updated in April 2021, on how Google fought Search spam in 2020.

12. Spam Update (23 June 2021)

Google's Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter an algorithm update targeted at fighting spam was rolling out to search results. The rollout of the update was to be completed the same day. He added that a second spam update would follow within a week. Google revealed no specific details on what this update was targeting.

13. Page Experience Update (15 June 2021)

Google confirms its long-awaited Page Experience update has started rolling out. Sites should not expect to see drastic changes as a result of this update, Google says, and the gradual rollout process should mitigate any sudden drops or spikes. The rollout will be completed by the end of August 2021.

14. Known Victims Protection (10 June 2021)

On 10 June, Pandu Nayak, Google Fellow and Vice President of Search, published a post on The Keyword blog. He discussed Google's work towards improving the algorithm to demote sites that "employ exploitative removals practices" and "predatory practices." He also shared a link people can use to report online harassment.

15. Broad Core Algorithm Update (2 June 2021)

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter that a broad core algorithm update was about to be released. Sullivan also noted that some planned improvements weren't ready for this update, so the parts that weren't ready will be rolled out as part of the second, related broad core algorithm update, scheduled for July.

16. Product Reviews Update (8 April 2021)

This search ranking algorithm update was designed to reward product reviews that share in-depth research rather than thin content that summarizes many products. In their announcement, Google also shared nine helpful questions to consider when creating and publishing product reviews.

17. Passage Ranking (10 February 2021)

Google's Public Liaison for Search, Danny Sullivan, announced via Twitter that Passage Ranking officially launched for English-language queries in the United States. According to Google: "This change doesn't mean we're indexing individual passages independently of pages. We're still indexing pages and considering info about entire pages for ranking.

18. Core Update (3 December 2020)

Google confirms a core algorithm update, the December 2020 Core Update, will be rolled out on 3 December 2020. This is the third core algorithm update of the calendar year. A fair amount of time has passed since the last core update compared to the average time between these updates.

19. Core Update (4 May 2020)

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter that Google would be releasing a broad core algorithm update. About 90 minutes later, he told me the update was underway and would take 1-2 weeks to roll out completely.

20. Featured Snippet Deduplication (22 January 2020)

Google's Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter that web pages in a featured snippet position would no longer be repeated in regular Page 1 organic listing. This change affected 100% of all search listings worldwide.

21. Core Update (13 January 2020)

Google's Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that a broad core algorithm update was about to be released. Google again provided the same guidance as for all other recent wide-core algorithm updates.

22. BERT (9 December 2019)

Google's Danny Sullivan tweeted that BERT was beginning its worldwide rollout and included the following languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia), Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

23. BERT Update (25 October 2019)

Google announced the BERT Update, calling it the most significant change to Google search in the past five years. Google uses BERT models to understand search queries better. Google said this change impacted search rankings and featured snippets, and BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will be used on 10 per cent of U.S. English searches.

24. Broad Core Algorithm Update (24 September 2019)

Google's Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that a broad core algorithm update would be released within a few hours, and it would take a few days to complete rolling out. Google's guidance was the same as it had been for all other recent core algorithm updates.

25. Featured Snippets Update (1 August 2019)

Google announced an update to the algorithm affecting the freshness of featured snippets in search results. This update will allow Google to find the freshest featured snippets for queries where current information will be most beneficial.

26. Core Update (2 June 2019)

On 2 June, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted that Google would be releasing a new broad core algorithm update on 3 June. The next day, Google confirmed the update was live and would be rolling out to its various data centres over the coming days. As with any broad core algorithm update, Google tells us there is nothing specific to fix because a core update encompasses many factors.

27. Core Update aka Florida 2 (12 March 2019)

Google's Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter the release of a global broad core algorithm update. SEJ confirmed that this update is significant and one of the most extensive Google updates. Sullivan again recommended following the guidance it provided following the 9 March 2018 update.

28. Valentine's Day Update (13 February 2019)

Algorithm trackers and industry chatter indicated some unconfirmed updates occurred before this date. However, unlike other updates, primarily positive changes in rankings were being reported.

29. Unconfirmed Halloween Update (31 October 2018)

Some webmasters reported changes around Halloween, perhaps indicating an (unconfirmed) Google update. But there was little evidence of a significant update here. The likely cause of the chatter was spillover from the August broad core algorithm update and Google ramping up its use of neural matching.

30. A "Small" Update (27 September 2018)

On Google's 20th birthday, many within the SEO community began noticing significant spikes and drops in traffic, indicating some update was underway. Some of the sites impacted by the August broad core algorithm update reportedly made a recovery. Google's Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter on 29 September that some "smaller" update had taken place.

31. Broad Core Algorithm Update (1 August 2018)

Google confirmed via Twitter for the third time this year the rollout of a broad core algorithm update. In doing so, Google's Search Liaison Danny Sullivan recommended following the guidance it provided following the 9 March 2018 update. This update has been referred to as "Medic" by some in the industry, even though Google said it was a general ranking update and wasn't explicitly targeting medical sites.

32. Broad Core Algorithm Update (16 April 2018)

Google confirmed via Twitter the release of another broad core algorithm update and indicated it was similar to the 9 March 2018 update, which was about content relevance.

33. Broad Core Algorithm Update (9 March 2018)

On 12 March, Google confirmed via Twitter that a "broad core algorithm update" had rolled out the prior week. While Google was light on details, Google said the changes were meant to "benefit pages that were previously under-rewarded" and advised everyone to "continue building great content."

34. Maccabees Update (12 December 2017)

Some in the search community reported their websites being hit by updates between December 12 and 14. Google confirmed several minor changes to the core algorithm during the timeframe but downplayed the significance of the period of flux.

35. Fall Flux (8 September 2017)

Industry chatter and SEO tracking tools indicated some unconfirmed Google updates may have occurred on this date. Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, also detected several noteworthy Google changes impacting traffic and search visibility starting 8 September.

36. Quality Update (19 August 2017)

Web admins and SEO ranking tools detected some minor volatility on August 19-20, with signs indicating this may have been another (unconfirmed) Google quality update. Among the ranking casualties: are category pages, pages with aggressive advertising, lower-quality/thin content, and other harmful user experience elements, according to an analysis by Glenn Gabe, president of GSQi.

37. Quality Update (9 July 2017)

SEO ranking tools detected little volatility on 9 July, potentially another unconfirmed Google quality update.

38.25 June Update

Various SEO tracking tools detected a significant, though unconfirmed, Google update on this date. One analysis found that this update caused the most significant fluctuations for pages ranking in Positions 6-10.

39. Quality Update (17 May 2017)

Starting 17 May and lasting for about a week, SEO tracking tools reported lots of SERP volatility. While the impact seems limited, those sites impacted by this update tended to have issues with aggressive/deceptive advertising, UX issues, and thin/low-quality content.

40. Fred (7 March 2017)

Google's Gary Illyes jokingly referred to this update as "Fred", and the name ended up sticking. But this algorithm was no laughing matter for those impacted. This major algorithm update seemed to target low-value content mainly. On 24 March, Illyes officially confirmed the update. But Google has refused to share any more specifics.

Google claims to update its search algorithm several thousand times per year. In most cases, Google algorithm updates are too small to notice. But, every once in a while, Google introduces a fundamental change that disrupts the way we do SEO forever.