History of Google UPDATE
For the 1 st time, History of Google UPDATE enlisted!
In our article we discussed, history of Google update from 2000 onwards. However, due to ever evolving technology, there are many more updates done since we last updated our blog post in 2018.
Since the birth of Google in 1997, this search engine has come a long way from keyword matching and link counting to better search results, intelligent suggestions, & better indexing through various algorithms and updates. Google’s aim is to provide relevant and better results and to fulfill this they are trying to root out websites who are not adhering Google Webmaster Guidelines.
SEO was very easy in earlier days as all you have to do is fill the content with keywords and provide lot of inbound links. With Google Update, SEO’s changed tactics and many black hat SEO techniques were applied to manipulate organic search results. This inability to provide relevant high quality search results made path for Google Algorithms & Update.
For the first time in 2012 after Google Penguin Update, low quality backlinks and many other black hat SEO techniques led to penalty. From that period onwards Google has consistently updated its various algorithms such as Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird etc to stay ahead of these search engine manipulaters.
Check out our blog on “latest Penguin 4.0 Update and how it affects SEO”.
According to Google, there around 500 different algorithm changes every year and most of them go unnoticed. So keeping track of all the changes and rolling out according to that is difficult. These changes are only to help the end-user so keeping highly quality, value added content would keep you ahead of the masses. Make sure you or the SEO company responsible for your digital marketing services is sticking to good SEO practices. You can read how to choose best SEO company in India before finalizing a contract for digital marketing.
Penguin 4.0 was in news majorly because of two reasons. Firstly, it is real time so changes would be visible faster and secondly, its granular which means only web page ranking is affected rather the whole domain. These are major changes in the algorithm and for other updates, going back in chronological order, read the list below.
Upon reading this list of Google update or history of Google update, you will find that why and how Google continuously keeps on improving its algorithm to never disappoint you with the results that Google displays on SERPs for an entered query or keyword. Visuals and links have been included to make it easy to understand that what a particular Google update is about and what is does.
2018 Google Update
Mobile-First Index Roll-out — March 26, 2018
Google finally announced that the mobile-first index was “rolling out.” It has been in testing for many months, and Google was migrating sites gradually under this algorithm. Though, it’s unclear how much impact this specific roll-out had on the overall index.
Rolling out mobile-first indexing (Google)
Google begins rolling out mobile-first indexing to more sites (SEL)
Zero-result SERP Test — March 14, 2018
In a little hard to observe update, on a small set of Knowledge Cards which included some time/date queries and unit conversion calculators, Google started to display zero organic results with a “Show All Results” button. Though, Google rolled back that update but got considered as preview of upcoming change for similar implementation.
Zero-Result SERPs: Welcome to the Future We Should’ve Known Was Coming (Moz)
In-Depth Look at Google’s New Zero Result Search Results (SEM Post)
“Brackets” Core Update — March 8, 2018
In the first week of March, the volatility in rankings spiked twice on 4th and 8th of March. Google confirmed a “core” update on 7th of March. The volatility was observed up to the prolonged period of two weeks and it was assumed that may have been multiple updates or rolling update under “Brackets” Core Update.
The Brackets Update – Analysis and Findings From The March 7, 2018 Google Algorithm Update (GSQi)
Google Confirmed Weekend Algorithm Ranking Shift As “Core Update” (SER)
Unnamed Update — February 20, 2018
Around 20th of February a spike in rankings was observed by number of tools, though it quickly got settle down. Many experts perceived it as a targeted algorithm update. However, Google did not confirm any update during this time period.
Google Algorithm Update Chatter & Signals February 20th (SER)
2017 Google Update
“Maccabees Update or the pre-holiday update” – December 14, 2017: Google released several minor improvements as part of their regular and routine efforts to improve relevancy. And the biggest fluctuations again take place on mobile.
Google confirms mid-December search ranking algorithm updates
“Fred” (Unconfirmed) – March 8, 2017: A rolled a major update and huge impact reported by SEO community, but not officially confirmed by Google again.
Unnamed Major Update – February 1-6, 2017: A heavy peak in algorithm was observed, which was believed to be multiple algorithm update, but again unconfirmed by Google.
Intrusive Interstitial Penalty – January 10, 2017: Google rolled out a penalty to punish aggressive interstitial and pop-ups which damages the mobile user experience.
2016 Google Update
Unnamed Major Update – December 14, 2016: A huge flux was seen in Google trackers, though Google did not confirm any update.
Unnamed Major Update – November 10, 2016: That was assumed to be the reversal of first update. Many observed bad dates in SERPs around same time, but unconfirmed by Google.
Penguin 4.0, Phase 2 – October 6, 2016: This Penguin update was the reversal of previous Penguin penalties.
Penguin 4.0, Phase 1 – September 22-23, 2016: This phase of Penguin 4.0 showed the mechanism of devalue bad links instead of penalizing the websites.
Penguin 4.0 Announcement – September 23, 2016: Google announced that new Penguin is now real-time & well integrated in the core-algorithm. A multi-phased launch expected.
Image/Universal Drop – September 13, 2016: A 50% drop in SERPs with image observed in universal/vertical image results, caused substantial shifts in rankings.
Possum – September 1, 2016: A local SEO community observed that update which is believed to generate a significant effect on organic results.
Mobile-friendly website update update-for- mobile-websites- 2016/ on May 12, 2016.
Ad Words update – February 23, 2016: Ads on the right were removed and instead rolled out 4-ad at top blocks on commercial searches.
History of Google UPDATE
Major Unknown Google Update – January 8, 2016: It was a core Google algorithm update. However, some SEO expert believes it is a Google Penguin Update.
2015 Google Update
Google RankBrain update – October 26, 2015: It is based on imbibing machine learning in its Google Algorithm. This update is regarded as the 3rd most factor to give ranking to WebPages.
Google Panda 4.2 Update – July 17, 2015: This Google panda algorithm update hurdles the poor websites and improved them to have content relevancy and great user experience.
Quality Update – May 3, 2015: It was dubbed as Phantom Update as no one really knows what this Google Update was about.
Google Mobile-friendly update “Mobilegeddon” – April 22, 2015
Unknown Google Update – February 4, 2015: Major changes in SERPs were observed but not officially announced by Google.
2014 Google Update
Google Pigeon update to expanded to the UK, CA & AU – December 22, 2014
Google Pirate 2.0 update – October 21, 2014 – It was rolled out to fight software and digital media piracy.
Penguin 3.0 update — October 17, 2014
The update, which allowed users to have the results of NEWS separately for a keyword. Like you get images October 2014
History of Google UPDATE 2015
Google Panda 4.1 Update- September 23, 2014 – It was a slow rollout.
Google Pigeon Update – July 24, 2014
Google Payday Loan 3.0 Update – June 12, 2014
Google Panda 4.0 Update – May 19, 2014
Google Payday Loan 2.0 update – May 16, 2014.
Google Page Layout update – February 6, 2014: If a website exceeds the predefined limit of ads display, then they were panelized.
2013 Google Update
Google Authorship update – December 19, 2013: The authorship mark-up were disappeared- around 15% of queries in a month.
Google “Unnamed” Update — December 17, 2013: This update was recognised when nearly all the global flux trackers observed high activity.
Google “Unnamed” Update — November 14, 2013: An update was intuited as the DNS errors were seen on Google Webmaster Tools- a sign of Google update.
Google Penguin 2.1 update October 4, 2013: It was a data update and not an algorithm update
Google rolled out its first “Hummingbird” – August 20, 2013: Through this update, Google refined its semantic search results and introduced knowledge graph.
Google “In-depth Articles” update – August 6, 2013: Google started to display in-depth articles for the knowledge-based keywords. See scholarly articles results below.
History of Google UPDATE 2013
Google Knowledge Graph Expansion Update – July 19, 2013
Google Panda Recovery Update – July 18, 2013: This update was favourable to penalized websites as it softened the process of website recovery through Best SEO Company in india
Google Exact-Match Domain Update – September 27, 2012
As Google had rolled the major two update, which was Google Panda Algorithm Update and Google Penguin Update that enormously increased the Google brand since then; thus, the year 2012 and 2013 saw the major updates majorly on Panda Update, Penguin Update, Knowledge Graph update etc. However, we list out the major another update apart from former ones.
2012 Update
“Phantom” update – May 9, 2013: Though not officially announced by Google it was dubbed as Phantom and on this huge traffic loss was observed.
Google Domain Crowding update – May 21, 2013: To control diversities in the domain
Google Penguin 2.0 update – May 22, 2013
7-Result SERPs — August 14, 2012
Google DMCA Penalty update – August 10, 2012: Google penalizes a website, which violates copyrights more than one time.
Link Warnings — July 19, 2012: Penalty for unnatural links.
Query Encryption Google Update – October 18, 2011: It was rolled out for encrypting search queries for personal privacy reasons.
2011 Google Update
Venice – February 27, 2012: Local search update
Penguin on April 24, 2012: The day when Google Penguin algorithm was rolled out finally- “A black day for Black Hat SEO experts”, New era of White Hat SEO took a momentum.
516 Google Algorithm Updates – September 21, 2011: It was news and not an update. However, since 2013 around 2-3 minor updates are performed daily. Now, you can recognise that why you need a DIGITAL360- best SEO company – to consistently rank on the SERPS.
Pagination Elements — September 15, 2011: To improve canonicalization of “view all” webpage, Google introduced rel=”next” and rel=”prev” link attributes.
Google Expanded Site links Update – August 16, 2011
Google update of “Negative Reviews” – December 2010
2010 Google Update
Google penalized ‘Overstock.com’ heavily – January 2011: In an event of Public outcry to Black Hat SEO practices, Google penalized “Overstock” heavily. Since then Google penalized major websites of popular brand like BMW etc for Black Hat SEO, see here:
Google Attribution Update – January 28, 2011: The forerunner of the Panda Algo
Google’s +1 Button feature – March 30, 2011: It was a pattern of like clicks for Google social community platform.
org — June 2, 2011: Three major search engine platforms by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for the consolidated approach for a structured data that displays better search results; by introducing schemas.
“Caffeine” Google infrastructure update – June 2010: to increase the speed of indexing.
History of Google UPDATE 2010
“Brand” Google Update — August 2010: Now, the domain can appear multiple times on the SERP even on the first SERP.
Google update of “Google Instant” – September 2010
Google update of “Instant Previews” – November 2010
Google update of “Social Signals” – December 2010
Google update of “Real-time Search” – December 2009: Social Media was integrated on SERPs.
2009 Google Update
Google Places updates (released) Google maps — April 2010: For local advertising!
“May Day” Google update – May 2010: To penalize the website having thin content which was focused on long-tail keywords.
Google update of “Re-canonical Tag” – February 2009
2008 Google Update
Google Suggest update – August 2008: Google suggests you for your keyword. See for chair below in the image.
History of Google UPDATE
2007 Google Update
Universal Search — May 2007: Google integrated all its search results segments which are News, Video, Images, Local and replaced the older one of 10-listing. See below three images that show SERPs have new results, Maps results and video results.
History of Google UPDATE 2007
History of Google UPDATE 2007
History of Google UPDATE 2007
2006 Google Update
No major Google updates. Google might have started to work on paper for something big like LSI algorithm.
2005 Google Update
“Big Daddy” – December 2005: It was the infrastructure update: URL canonicalization, redirects (301/302) and others were changed w.r.t how they work.
“Jagger” Google update – October 2005: To target low-quality links and paid links.
Google Local Maps – October 2005
Google IPO came out in August of 2004.
2004 Google Update
Google ‘Nofollow’ update – January 2005: The fight against spams and control over the outbound link qualities.
History of Google UPDATE 2005
Google ‘Allegra’ update – February 2005: For first time significance of LSI was observed but was not powerful as it is today that deliberately converted SEO into content marketing.
Google ‘Bourbon’ update – May 2005: the First fight against SEO for duplicate and canonical content.
XML Sitemaps — June 2005 : With this update, SEOs gained the advantage of influencing crawling and indexing as now webmasters were able to submit the XML sitemaps through Webmaster Tools; thus bypassed the older technique of HTML sitemaps.
Google update for Personalized Search – June 2005
Google ‘Fritz’ update — July 2003: Google indexing changed.
Google ‘Florida’ update – November 2003: Keyword stuffing was put on a check!
2003 Google Update
Austin — January 2004: Not documented or officially released however many SEO experts speculate it the introduction of ‘Hilltop” algorithm to take relevancy of the content on a serious thought.
Google ‘Brandy; update – February 2004: LSI was introduced to understand(only) synonyms.
‘Dominic’ Google update – May 2003: for analysing backlinks.
‘Cassandra’ Google update – April 2003: massive linking was put on the check.
2002 Google Update
Google’s first ever documented Update – September 2002 was ‘Boston.’ However, no one knows what it was as SEO experts were a novice at that time.
2000 Google Update
Google introduced its own Toolbar in December of the first year of this digital century.
Google Updates are necessary to provide relevant content to us whether be on mobile device or desktop. Google has reached the height where it is making it difficult for mediocre SEOs to exist for boosting ranks on SERPs
Regularly visit our BLOG to stay updated on Google update and more on best SEO practices.