2012 Updates
Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012
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).
May 39-Pack — June 7, 2012
Google released their monthly Search Highlights, with 39 updates
in May. Major changes included Penguin improvements, better link-scheme
detection, changes to title/snippet rewriting, and updates to Google News.
Penguin 1.1 — May 25, 2012
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.
Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012
In a major step toward semantic search, Google started
rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a SERP-integrated display providing
supplemental object about certain people, places, and things. Expect to see
"knowledge panels" appear on more and more SERPs over time. Also,
Danny Sullivan's favorite Trek is ST:Voyager?!
April 52-Pack — May 4, 2012
Google published details of 52 updates in April, including
changes that were tied to the "Penguin" update. Other highlights
included a 15% larger "base" index, improved pagination handling, and
a number of updates to sitelinks.
Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012
Barely a week after Panda 3.5, Google rolled out yet another
Panda data update. The implications of this update were unclear, and it seemed
that the impact was relatively small.
Penguin — April 24, 2012
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 3.5 — April 19, 2012
In the middle of a busy week for the algortihm, Google quietly
rolled out a Panda data update. A mix of changes made the impact difficult to
measure, but this appears to have been a fairly routine update with minimal
impact.
Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012
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.
March 50-Pack — April 3, 2012
Google posted another batch of update highlights, covering 50
changes in March. These included confirmation of Panda 3.4, changes to
anchor-text "scoring", updates to image search, and changes to how
queries with local intent are interpreted.
Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012
Google announced another Panda update, this time via Twitter as
the update was rolling out. Their public statements estimated that Panda 3.4
impacted about 1.6% of search results.
Search Quality Video — March 12, 2012
This wasn't an algorithm update, but Google published a rare
peek into a search quality meeting. For anyone interested in the algorithm, the
video provides a lot of context to both Google's process and their priorities.
It's also a chance to see Amit Singhal in action.
Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012
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.
February 40-Pack (2) — February 27, 2012
Google published a second set of "search quality
highlights" at the end of the month, claiming more than 40 changes in
February. Notable changes included multiple image-search updates, multiple
freshness updates (including phasing out 2 old bits of the algorithm), and a
Panda update.
Venice — February 27, 2012
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.
February 17-Pack — February 3, 2012
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.
Ads Above The Fold — January 19, 2012
Google updated their page layout algorithms to devalue sites
with too much ad-space above the "fold". It was previously suspected
that a similar factor was in play in Panda. The update had no official name,
although it was referenced as "Top Heavy" by some SEOs.
Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012
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.
Search + Your World — January 10, 2012
Google announced a radical shift in personalization -
aggressively pushing Google+ social data and user profiles into SERPs.
Google also added a new, prominent toggle button to shut off personalization.
January 30-Pack — January 5, 2012
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. The line between an "algo
update" and a "feature" got a bit more blurred.
December 10-Pack — December 1, 2011
Google outlined a second set of 10 updates, announcing that
these posts would come every month. Updates included related query refinements,
parked domain detection, blog search freshness, and image search
freshness. The exact dates of each update were not provided.
Panda 3.1 — November 18, 2011
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.
10-Pack of Updates — November 14, 2011
This one was a bit unusual. In a bid to be more transparent,
Matt Cutts released a post with 10 recent algorithm updates. It's not clear
what the timeline was, and most were small updates, but it did signal a shift
in how Google communicates algorithm changes.
Freshness Update — November 3, 2011
Google announced that an algorithm change rewarding freshness
would impact up to 35% of queries (almost 3X the publicly stated impact of
Panda 1.0). This update primarly affected time-sensitive results, but signalled
a much stronger focus on recent content.
Query Encryption — October 18, 2011
Google announced they would be encrypting search queries, for
privacy reasons. Unfortunately, this disrupted organic keyword referral data,
returning "(not provided)" for some organic traffic. This number
increased in the weeks following the launch.
Panda "Flux" — October 5, 2011
Matt Cutts tweeted: "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.
Panda 2.5 — September 28, 2011
After more than month, Google rolled out another Panda update.
Specific details of what changed were unclear, but some sites reported
large-scale losses.
516 Algo Updates — September 21, 2011
This wasn't an update, but it was an amazing revelation. Google
CEO Eric Schmidt told Congress that Google made 516 updates in 2010. The real
shocker? They tested over 13,000 updates.
Pagination Elements — September 15, 2011
To help fix crawl and duplication problems created by
pagination, Google introduced the rel="next" and rel="prev"
link attributes. Google also announced that they had improved automatic
consolidation and canonicalization for "View All" pages.
Expanded Sitelinks — August 16, 2011
After experimenting for a while, Google officially rolled out
expanded site-links, most often for brand queries. At first, these were
12-packs, but Google appeared to limit the expanded site-links to 6 shortly
after the roll-out.
Panda Goes Global (2.4) — August 12, 2011
Google rolled Panda out internationally, both
for English-language queries globally and non-English queries except
for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Google reported that this impacted
6-9% of queries in affected countries.
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.
Google+ — June 28, 2011
After a number of social media failures, Google launched a
serious attack on Facebook with Google+. Google+ revolved around circles for
sharing content, and was tightly integrated into products like Gmail. Early
adopters were quick to jump on board, and within 2 weeks Google+ reached 10M
users.
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.
Schema.org — June 2, 2011
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft jointly announced support for a
consolidated approach to structured data. They also created a number of new
"schemas", in an apparent bid to move toward even richer search
results.
Panda 2.1 — May 9, 2011
Initially dubbed “Panda 3.0”, Google appeared to roll out yet
another round of changes. These changes weren’t discussed in detail by Google
and seemed to be relatively minor.
Panda 2.0 — April 11, 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.
The +1 Button — March 30, 2011
Responding to competition by major social sites, including
Facebook and Twitter, Google launched the +1 button (directly next to results
links). Clicking [+1] allowed users to influence search results within their
social circle, across both organic and paid results.
Panda/Farmer — February 23, 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.
Attribution Update — January 28, 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. It was a clear precursor to
the Panda updates.
Overstock.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. Both situations
represented a shift in Google's attitude and foreshadowed the Panda update.
Social Signals — December 2010
Google and Bing confirmed that they use social signals in
determining ranking, including data from Twitter and Facebook. Matt Cutts
confirmed that this was a relatively new development for Google, although many
SEOs had long suspected it would happen.
Negative Reviews — December 2010
After an expose in the New York Times about how e-commerce site
DecorMyEyes was ranking based on negative reviews, Google made a rare move and
reactively adjusted the algorithm to target sites using similar tactics.
Instant Previews — November 2010
A magnifying glass icon appeared on Google search results,
allowing search visitors to quickly view a preview of landing pages directly
from SERPs. This signaled a renewed focus for Google on landing page quality,
design, and usability.
Google Instant — September 2010
Expanding on Google Suggest, Google Instant launched, displaying
search results as a query was being typed. SEOs everywhere nearly spontaneously
combusted, only to realize that the impact was ultimately fairly small.
Brand Update — August 2010
Although not a traditional algorithm update, Google started
allowing the same domain to appear multiple times on a SERP. Previously,
domains were limited to 1-2 listings, or 1 listing with indented results.
Caffeine (Rollout) — 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.
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.
Google Places — April 2010
Although "Places" pages were rolled out in September
of 2009, they were originally only a part of Google Maps. The official launch
of Google Places re-branded the Local Business Center, integrated Places pages
more closely with local search results, and added a number of features,
including new local advertising options.
Real-time Search — December 2009
This time, real-time search was for real- Twitter feeds, Google
News, newly indexed content, and a number of other sources were integrated into
a real-time feed on some SERPs. Sources continued to expand over time,
including social media.
Caffeine (Preview) — 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. The timeline spanned months, with the final
rollout starting in the US in early 2010 and lasting until the summer.
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.
Google Suggest — August 2008
In a major change to their logo-and-a-box home-page Google
introduced Suggest, displaying suggested searches in a dropdown below the
search box as visitors typed their queries. Suggest would later go on to power
Google Instant.
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.
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.
Universal Search — May 2007
While not your typical algorithm update, Google integrated
traditional search results with News, Video, Images, Local, and other verticals,
dramatically changing their format. The old 10-listing SERP was officially
dead. Long live the old 10-listing SERP.
False Alarm — December 2006
There were stirrings about an update in December, along with
some reports of major ranking changes in November, but Google reported no major
changes.
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 (even if it sometimes felt that way).
Big Daddy — December 2005
Technically, Big Daddy was an infrastructure update (like the more
recent "Caffeine"), and it rolled out over a few months, wrapping up
in March of 2006. Big Daddy changed the way Google handled URL
canonicalization, redirects (301/302) and other technical issues.
Jagger — October 2005
Google released a series of updates, mostly targeted at
low-quality links, including reciprocal links, link farms, and paid links.
Jagger rolled out in at least 3 stages, from roughly September to November of
2005, with the greatest impact occurring in October.
Google Local/Maps — October 2005
After launching the Local Business Center in March 2005 and
encouraging businesses to update their information, Google merged its Maps data
into the LBC, in a move that would eventually drive a number of changes in
local SEO.
Gilligan — September 2005
Also called the "False" update ? 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.
Personalized Search — June 2005
Unlike previous attempts at personalization, which required
custom settings and profiles, the 2005 roll-out of personalized search tapped
directly into users? search histories to automatically adjust results. Although
the impact was small at first, Google would go on to use search history for many
applications.
XML Sitemaps — 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.
Bourbon — May 2005
"GoogleGuy" (likely Matt Cutts) announced 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.
Allegra — February 2005
Webmasters witnessed ranking changes, but the specifics of the
update were unclear. Some thought Allegra affected the "sandbox"
while others believed that LSI had been tweaked. Additionally, some speculated
that Google was beginning to penalize suspicious links.
Nofollow — January 2005
To combat spam and control outbound link quality, Google, Yahoo,
and Microsoft collectively introduce the "nofollow" attribute.
Nofollow helps clean up unvouched for links, including spammy blog comments.
While not a traditional algorithm update, this change gradually has a
significant impact on the link graph.
Google IPO — August 2004
Although obviously not an algorithm update, a major event in
Google's history - Google sold 19M shares, raised $1.67B in capital, and set
their market value at over $20B. By January 2005, Google share prices more than
doubled.
Brandy — February 2004
Google rolled out a variety of changes, including a massive
index expansion, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), increased attention to anchor
text relevance, and the concept of link "neighborhoods." LSI expanded
Google's ability to understand synonyms and took keyword analysis to the next
level.
Austin — January 2004
What Florida missed, Austin came in to clean up. Google
continued to crack-down on deceptive on-page tactics, including invisible text
and META-tag stuffing. Some speculated that Google put the "Hilltop"
algorithm into play and began to take page relevance seriously.
Florida — November 2003
This was the update that put updates (and probably the SEO
industry) on the map. Many sites lost ranking, and business owners were
furious. Florida sounded the death knell for low-value late 90s SEO tactics,
like keyword stuffing, and made the game a whole lot more interesting.
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 became a hotly debated SEO
topic, until the index was later reintegrated.
Fritz — July 2003
The monthly "Google Dance" finally came to an end with
the "Fritz" update. Instead of completely overhauling the index on a
roughly monthly basis, Google switched to an incremental approach. The index
was now changing daily.
Esmerelda — June 2003
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". Esmerelda probably heralded some major
infrastructure changes at Google.
Dominic — May 2003
While many changes were observed in May, the exact nature of
Dominic was unclear. Google bots "Freshbot" and
"Deepcrawler" scoured the web, and many sites reported bounces. The
way Google counted or reported backlinks seemed to change dramatically.
Cassandra — April 2003
Google cracked down on some basic link-quality issues, such as
massive linking from co-owned domains. Cassandra also came down hard on hidden
text and hidden links.
Boston — February 2003
Announced at SES
Boston, this was the first named Google update. Originally, Google aimed at a
major monthly update, so the first few updates were a combination of algorithm
changes and major index refreshes (the so-called "Google Dance"). As
updates became more frequent, the monthly idea quickly died.
1st Documented Update — September 2002
Before "Boston" (the first named update), there was a
major shuffle in the Fall of 2002. The details are unclear, but this appeared
to be more than the monthly Google Dance and PageRank update. As one webmaster
said of Google: "they move the toilet mid stream".
Google Toolbar — December 2000
Guaranteeing SEO arguments for years to come, Google launched
their browser toolbar, and with it, Toolbar PageRank (TBPR). As soon as
webmasters started watching TBPR, the Google Dance began.
