Google Algorithm Update Tracker

A broad core update rolling out mid-July 2026 with wide SERP shifts across informational and commercial queries.

Targets low-effort AI mass content, cloaking and expired-domain abuse. Sites relying on scaled generic content see the largest declines.

Broad relevance re-ranking with visible movement for how-to, product and health content.

The largest core update since 2024 — recalibrates helpful content signals and site-level quality scoring.

Second-tier spam sweep focused on scaled abuse and manipulated reputation signals.

Targets ranking in Google Discover — visual quality, headlines and click satisfaction rebalanced.

Year-end broad core update that reset rankings across many verticals into 2026.

SpamBrain update focused on link spam and manipulative anchor patterns.

Broad core update with mid-summer SERP volatility — heavy movement for review and comparison content.

Trackers noted elevated volatility bridging late May and mid-June 2025 without a Google announcement.

Historic March 2023 core update page — refreshed with long-term outcomes and recovery patterns observed through 2025.

Manual and algorithmic action against third-party content published on high-authority domains to exploit their rankings.

Broad core update with strong impact on informational content and affiliate reviews.

Local pack shuffling reported by trackers in early January 2025.

First broad core update of 2025. HCU signals folded into core.

Second broad core update of 2025.

Continued enforcement on scaled AI content.

Late 2025 broad core update.

Targets scaled content abuse and reputation manipulation after core rollout.

Broad core update rolled out immediately after November — compounded volatility across many niches.

Broad core update focused on rewarding original, useful content.

Trackers logged multi-week SERP volatility bridging late September into October 2024.

Google acknowledged a ranking issue during the August 2024 core rollout.

Broad core update explicitly designed to reduce unhelpful content and reward smaller, independent sites.

Tracker-only volatility in late July 2024.

SpamBrain update against low-quality mass content and manipulative patterns.

Trackers noted a burst of volatility in mid-May 2024.

Refinements to how desktop page experience signals contribute to ranking.

Introduced expanded scaled-content-abuse, site-reputation-abuse and expired-domain-abuse policies.

Core update targeting a 40% reduction in unhelpful content.

Tracker volatility in mid-February 2024.

Local pack shuffling early January 2024.

Massive combined core + spam update. Multiple parasite SEO and AI content policies enforced.

Broad core update — some HCU-affected sites reported partial recovery.

Fourth broad core update of 2024.

Fifth broad core update of 2024.

Enforcement on remaining spam vectors.

Enforcement on scaled content and expired-domain abuse.

Year-end volatility without a Google announcement.

Reviews system refinement — targets first-hand experience and expertise in review content.

Second core rollout of November 2023 with broad SERP shifts.

Rewards personal, insightful content — forum posts, first-person stories and long-tail perspectives.

Broad core update following the September helpful content update.

Expanded the helpful content system beyond English.

SpamBrain nullifies unnatural links across languages.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Product reviews refinement expanded to more languages.

Reviews system generalized beyond products to services, businesses, media and destinations.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Broad core update in late August 2023.

SpamBrain update focused on cloaking, scraped content and international spam.

Major refinement of the helpful content signal — one of the most impactful updates of 2023.

First broad core update of 2023.

Second broad core update of 2023.

Third broad core update of 2023.

Fourth broad core update of 2023 — back-to-back rollouts.

Third HCU with expanded scope. Many small publishers report massive traffic losses.

Cloaking, scraping and low-quality auto-generated content targeted.

Reviews update expanded beyond products — services and destinations included.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

SpamBrain spam update.

Tracker volatility spike.

Product reviews refinement.

Local pack volatility.

Broad core update in September 2022.

Introduced the site-wide Helpful Content signal against content written for search engines rather than people.

Widespread Google Search outage.

Product reviews refinement.

Tracker volatility.

Improvements to multilingual and transliterated title rendering.

Broad core update in May 2022.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Product reviews refinement.

Tracker-recorded peak volatility.

Adjustments to how DMCA notices affect ranking.

First broad core update of 2022 — wide volatility across niches.

Broad core update with significant volatility.

First Helpful Content Update — site-wide signal targeting content 'made primarily for search engines'.

Second Helpful Content Update, expanded to all languages.

SpamBrain AI now detects both link buyers and sellers.

Third product reviews update.

Fourth product reviews update.

Fifth product reviews update.

Extended volatility episode across September 2021.

Single-day tracker spike.

Elevated SERP volatility on June 30, 2021.

Tracker volatility spike.

Tracker volatility spike.

Original mobile Page Experience rollout combining Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, mobile-friendliness and safe browsing.

Local search rebalancing.

Product reviews refinement.

Broad core update in November 2021.

SpamBrain anti-spam refresh.

Tracker-recorded peak volatility.

Google began systematically rewriting page titles in the SERP.

Combined link spam nullification and title rewriting adjustments.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker-recorded peak volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Local pack shifts.

SpamBrain nullifies unnatural links at scale.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker-recorded elevated volatility.

Local pack shifts.

Tracker-recorded elevated volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker volatility.

Tracker-recorded peak volatility.

Tracker-recorded elevated volatility.

Local pack shifts.

Local pack shifts.

Enables Google to rank a specific passage within a long page as if it were a standalone answer.

Original launch of the product reviews system focused on rewarding in-depth review content.

Broad core update in June 2021.

Tracker volatility around reviews queries.

Second wave of SpamBrain anti-spam updates in 2021.

SpamBrain anti-spam update.

Broad core update in July 2021, completing the split June/July rollout.

Individual passages inside pages can rank independently.

Core Web Vitals become a ranking signal on mobile.

Multitask Unified Model announced; multimodal Q&A capability introduced.

First half of a two-part broad core update.

Two-part spam update rolling out over weeks.

Nullifies unnatural links across many languages.

Final broad core update of 2021.

First named product reviews update — rewards in-depth reviews over thin affiliate content.

Second product reviews update — reinforces depth over shallow round-ups.

Broad core update with significant YMYL volatility.

One of the largest broad core updates on record. Travel and local hit during COVID lockdowns.

Final broad core update of 2020, widespread impact.

First named 'broad core update' era — significant ranking volatility across YMYL and beyond.

Broad core update with widespread impact across niches.

Broad core update; smaller impact than March/June 2019.

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers applied to search. 10% of queries affected.

Broad core update disproportionately affecting YMYL sites — health, medical, finance.

Mobile pages with intrusive interstitials lose ranking.

Unofficial name — targets ad-heavy, low-value content sites monetizing aggressively.

Penguin becomes real-time and part of the core algorithm. Devalues spammy links instead of penalizing sites.

Local pack filtering changes based on address proximity. Businesses outside city limits gained rankings.

Boosts the mobile-friendly ranking factor further. Non-mobile-friendly pages continue to lose visibility.

Google's first major machine-learning ranking signal. Interprets ambiguous queries by matching to related concepts.

Slow rollout of Panda across all queries. Affects sites with thin, duplicate or low-value content.

Core quality algorithm update targeting how content quality is assessed. HowTo and video sites hit hard.

Mobile-friendliness becomes a mobile ranking factor. Non-responsive sites lose mobile visibility.

Overhauls local search results. Directory sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor gain visibility over local businesses in some queries.

3-5% of queries affected. Better identification of low-quality content.

Third iteration targeting spammy queries. Payday loans, casino and other 'very spammy' verticals affected.

Major Panda refresh with a new algorithm. ~7.5% of English queries affected.

Site-level spam signals refined for spammy verticals.

Google drops author photos and byline images from search results.

Complete algorithm rewrite emphasizing semantic search and conversational queries. Affects 90% of searches.

New SERP feature surfacing long-form journalism. Article and NewsArticle schema become important.

Targets 'very spammy' queries — payday loans, casinos, pharmaceuticals.

Fifth iteration of Penguin. 1% of queries affected.

Fourth iteration and first to go beyond home page level. 2.3% of English queries affected.

Last named Panda before it was rolled into the core algorithm.

Reduces poor-quality exact-match domain rankings. 0.6% of English queries affected.

Original launch of Penguin, targeting sites violating webmaster guidelines through link schemes and keyword stuffing.

Local results integrated into main organic results based on searcher location.

35% of searches affected — favors more recent content for time-sensitive queries.

Original launch of Panda, targeting content farms, thin content and low-quality sites. 12% of English queries affected.

Long-tail queries affected — favors sites with topical authority over broad affiliates.

New indexing infrastructure providing 50% fresher results.

Favors trusted brand names in the SERPs.

Large-scale reshuffling of the SERPs; Google properties gained visibility.

Blends news, video, images and local into universal SERPs.

Infrastructure update changing how canonicalization and redirects were handled.

Three-stage update targeting low-quality links, reciprocal links and paid links.

Changes to duplicate content handling and URL canonicalization.

Sandbox-related update; addressed suspicious link patterns.

Google, Yahoo and MSN introduce rel=nofollow to combat comment spam.

Massive index expansion, latent semantic indexing signals introduced, link neighborhoods analyzed.

Continuation of Florida — targets hidden text and meta-tag stuffing.

First major algorithm shift attacking over-optimization and keyword stuffing.

Introduction of daily 'everflux' — the index started updating daily rather than monthly.

Last of the 'monthly Google dances' — infrastructure change to more frequent updates.

Change to how backlinks were counted and reported.

Targets link and text hiding; addresses massive linking from co-owned domains.

First named Google update — announced at SES Boston.