Google Algorithm Updates and Changes History

Google changes its algorithm frequently and it is a very difficult task for marketers to know Google’s pattern of algorithm rollout.

Most of the updates released by Google throughout the year are minor updates that have a lesser impact on search queries and affect lesser sites throughout the world. Google occasionally releases major algorithm updates which have a bigger impact on search queries causing rank decreases of many sites and even penalisation of some sites which goes against Google policy.

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It is surely a critical thing to know the pattern of Google’s algorithm updates and changes, but keeping the track of Google’s algorithm updates history can help you to get perspective on the rank fluctuations and organic website traffic, ultimately you can recheck your SEO strategies and improve search engine optimisation of your website.

To help you keep track of all minor and major algorithmic updates by Google, we had deep research on this and documented the major and minor SEO updates and changes that were confirmed by Google. However, some of the changes were not confirmed by Google, but some webmasters noticed a sudden drop in their website rankings and some experienced ranking fluctuations which made them sure there were some changes or updates done by Google behind the curtain.

Now, let’s go through all the major and minor Google algorithm updates.

2023 Google Updates

March Core Update (15^th March 2023)

Core updates involve large changes to Google’s algorithm aimed to make the results better. They’re generally focused on E-E-A-T or Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These updates can cause significant shifts in ranking. This update was completed on March 28th.

Product Reviews Update (21^st February 2023)

Product review updates prioritize content that demonstrates first-hand knowledge and expertise of the products. This update applies to content in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Polish. This update was completed on March 7th.

2022 Google Updates

Link Spam Update (14^th December 2022)

Google has employed its AI-based spam prevention system, SpamBrain, to detect sites purchasing links and passing outgoing links, for the first time. Consequently, the links’ values are removed, and this global update affects all languages. This Link Spam Update was completed on January 12th, 2023.

Helpful Content Update (14^th December 2022)

This helpful content update enhances Google’s classifier to operate across all languages. It focuses on promoting more original, valuable content written by people, for people, rather than content primarily created to attract search engine traffic. It was completed on January 12th, 2023.

Spam Update (19^th October 2022)

The spam updates target sites that don’t adhere to the webmaster guidelines, which may seek short-term gains while ignoring best practices. The update was completed on October 21st.

Product Reviews Update (20^th September 2022)

The product review update prioritizes content that showcases first-hand knowledge and expertise of products specifically in English language product reviews. It was completed on September 26th.

Core Update (12^th September 2022)

Core updates bring significant changes to Google’s algorithm to refine search results, emphasizing Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). These updates may cause notable ranking fluctuations. The update was completed on September 26th.

Helpful Content Update (25^th August 2022)

The helpful content update focuses on promoting original, valuable content written by people, for people, rather than content mainly created for search engine traffic. The update will take up to 2 weeks to roll out.

Product Reviews Update (27^th July 2022)

The product review update prioritizes content that displays first-hand knowledge and expertise of products specifically in English language product reviews. The update was completed on August 2nd.

Core Update (25^th May 2022)

Core updates involve significant changes to Google’s algorithm aimed to refine search results, emphasizing Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). These updates may cause notable ranking fluctuations. The update was completed on June 9th.

Product Reviews Update (23^rd March 2022)

The product review update prioritizes content that showcases first-hand knowledge and expertise of products. It was completed on April 6th.

Desktop Page Experience Update (22^nd February 2022)

Desktop Page Experience updates focus on highlighting pages that offer excellent user experiences, including mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, intrusive interstitials, and speed metrics referred to as Core Web Vitals. The update was completed on March 3rd.

2021 Google Updates

Product Reviews and Local Search Update (1^st December 2021)

On December 21st, product review updates were completed, prioritizing content that showcases first-hand knowledge and expertise of the products.

Core Update (17^th November 2021)

On November 30th, core updates were completed, which aim to make the search results better by focusing on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, causing significant shifts in ranking.

Spam Update (3^rd November 2021)

Spam updates completed on November 11th target sites that don’t follow webmaster guidelines and may be seeking short-term gains while ignoring best practices.

Page Titles Rewrite (16^th August 2021)

Google changed how titles for pages are written in the SERP, where more titles are now rewritten and each page generally has one title now. Previously, titles could change depending on the query.

Link Spam Update (26^th July 2021)

An update that targeted link spam update was completed on August 24th, as part of spam updates targeting sites that don’t follow webmaster guidelines.

Core Update (1^st July 2021)

On July 12th, core updates were completed, which aim to make the search results better by focusing on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, causing significant shifts in ranking.

Spam Updates Part 1 & 2 (23^rd and 28^th Jun, 2021)

June 2021 Spam updates that target sites not following webmaster guidelines were completed on the same day.

Mobile Page Experience Update (15^th June 2021)

A mobile page experience update completed on September 2nd highlighted pages that offer great user experiences, including mobile friendliness, intrusive interstitials, safe browsing, and speed metrics referred to as Core Web Vitals.

Protecting People From Harassment Update (10^th November 2021)

An update was completed to target sites that may engage in predatory practices when it comes to harassing people.

Core Update (2^nd June 2021)

On June 12th, core updates were completed, which aim to make the search results better by focusing on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, causing significant shifts in ranking.

Product Reviews Update (8^th April 2021)

On April 22nd, product review updates were completed, prioritizing content that showcases first-hand knowledge and expertise of the products.

Passage Ranking (10^th Feb 2021)

Passage ranking was improved to help specific passages within pages to rank better for relevant queries. This update was completed on February 15th.

2020 Google Updates

Core Update (3^rd December 2020)

On December 16th, Google completed a core update that aimed to make significant improvements to search results by focusing on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T), which can result in significant ranking changes.

Subtopics Ranking (15^th November 2020)

Google implemented subtopic ranking to better understand relevant subtopics for some search results and display a broader range of relevant content. The exact date is unknown.

Indexing & Canonicalization Bugs (20^th September, 2020)

Two separate bugs occurred simultaneously and caused some instability in search results. The mobile indexing bug was fixed on October 8th, and the canonical issue was resolved on October 14th.

Core Update (4^th May 2020)

On May 18th, Google completed a core update focused on improving search results by emphasizing E-A-T, which can cause significant ranking shifts.

Featured Snippet De-duping (22^nd January 2020)

Google made an update that ensures that a page is only listed once in SERPs, whereas previously, a page could appear as both a featured snippet and another organic listing.

Core Update (13^th January 2020)

Google 2020 Core updates are significant changes to Google’s algorithm that aim to improve search results by emphasizing E-A-T, and can result in substantial ranking changes.

For full updates and changes in Google Search Algorithms, please refer to Google’s Search Status Dashboard.

2016 Google Updates

Google introduced a new algorithm “Possum” algorithm in 2016 to diversify the local results and reduce spam. Updates to mobile-friendly and Penguin algorithms were also seen.

Major Updates

Penguin 4.0 Released (23^rd September 2016)

Google announced the release of the Penguin 4.0 update on the 23^rd of September, 2016. The main objective of this algorithm was to reduce spam in search engine results. Websites that employed black hats SEO tricks such as keyword stuffing and linking schemes to rank their site in the SERP were found affected or penalised. People did see fluctuation in their rankings but overall, nothing major effects were seen.

Penguin 4.0 had two major changes. The first change is now real-time. So, the Penguin’s data is refreshed in real-time which results in the quick visibility of the changes. The next change is Penguin is now more granular. Rather than affecting the whole website, it devalues the spam adjusting ranking based on spam signals.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/09/penguin-is-now-part-of-our-core.html

“Possum Algorithm Update” (1^st September 2016)

Google updated the Possum algorithm with the objective to diversify the local results and prevent spam from ranking. This Possum algorithm was updated on 1^st September 2016. The algorithm used addresses and affiliations to filter out the duplicate local results. The possum algorithm update has given more priority to the physical location of the business. So, if a user is searching from a closer location to you then, the chances are more that your business gets a higher ranking.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900

Mobile Friendly Update (12^th May 2016)

Google rolled out the first mobile-friendly algorithm on 21^st April 2015 which was to boost the ranking of the sites with mobile-friendly pages. After one year of the mobile update, Google rolled out another mobile-friendly algorithm on 12^th May 2016 with the objective to increase the effect of the ranking signal to help users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly. Those sites with mobile-friendly designs did not have any bad effects.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/continuing-to-make-web-more-mobile.html

Unnamed Major Update (10^th May 2016)

Though Google did not confirm this unnamed major update which took on 10^th May 2016, many of the MozCast and other Google Web weather trackers went through a 97-degree spike in algorithm changes. From 6^th May to 13^th May, there was a continuous fluctuation in Google SERP.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-no-recent-major-algorithm-update-22064.html

AdWords Change Update (23^rd February 2016)

Google performed an Adword change update on 23rd February 2016. The update made a major change to Adwords by removing the ads of the right column entirely and adding 4 ads at the top blocks on many commercial searches. These paid search updates not only lead to zero sidebars in the SERP, but also leads to an increase in the bottom of the SERP ads.

Minor Updates

SERP Shake-Up (13^th September, 2016)

High fluctuation in rankings, especially in the local search was seen between early to mid-September. Webmasters were pretty sure there were substantial ranking shifts however, there was no confirmation from Google about the update.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-downplays-google-algorithm-ranking-update-week-normal-fluctuations-258923

Google Core Quality Rank Update (8^th January 2016)

Webmasters found lots of changes in their ranking, which they thought was a Penguin update. But, later on, Google denied it and confirmed the update was a core ranking change totally unrelated to Penguin.

Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-core-ranking-21460.html

2015 Google Updates

2015 was the year of mobile updates, Google decided to give a ranking boost to those sites which had mobile-friendly web pages.

Major Updates

RankBrain Related Algorithm Update (26^th October 2015)

Google announced the release of the RankBrain algorithm, which uses artificial intelligence to filter results. Webmasters viewed the unusually high increase in SERP fluctuations in Google desktop for a month. This algorithm helped Google to deliver more intelligent and precisely focused related search results.

Related: https://www.rankranger.com/blog/google-brain-update-related-search

Panda 4.2 (17^th July 2015)

The spammy links and sites with low quality which were penalised by Google Panda 4.1 in September, 2014 were refreshed by this update as Panda 4.2 was the first refresh after the update in 2014. The update took a whole month to roll out and only 2-3% of queries were impacted by this Panda update.

Source: https://www.thesempost.com/google-panda-update-everything-we-know-about-panda-4-2/

The Core Quality Update — May 3, 2015

After spikes in Google desktop SERP fluctuation from April end to mid-May, Google confirmed Google core quality update on 13^th May, 2015 which was called Google “Phantom 2” algorithm update. This update had a broad impact on “quality signals”.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/the-quality-update-google-confirms-changing-how-quality-is-assessed-resulting-in-rankings-shake-up-221118

Google Mobile-Friendly Update (22^nd April, 2015)

On April 21^st, 2015 Google pre-announced the Google Mobilegeddon Mobile Update to change the mobile results ranking. This update gave a boost to mobile friendly pages in Google’s mobile search results and the sites without mobile friendly design were given less priority. However, the impact of this update was much smaller than expected.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-mobile-friendly-update

Minor Updates

HTTPS Update (17^th December, 2015)

Google announced HTTPS update on 17^th December, 2015 in order to decrease the risk for users to browse a website over an insecure connection. After this update, HTTPS sites were give more priority and Google started giving ranking boost to those HTTPS URLs in search results.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/12/indexing-https-pages-by-default.html

Hacked Sites Update (5^th October, 2015)

In order to improve the quality of search, Google updated hacked sites algorithm which removed all the hacked sites from the search results. 5 % of the queries were expected to be affected by this algorithmic change depending on the language.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/10/an-update-on-how-we-tackle-hacked-spam.html

Google Snack Pack Update (August, 2015)

Google rolled out an important update in august of 2015. The update gave new design to local by removing the normal 7 packs map that shows up in the local business search results and replaced it by 3 packs map.

Source: https://www.thehoth.com/blog/google-local-3-pack/

Unnamed Update (4^th February, 2015)

Although Google didn’t give any confirmation about the update, webmasters tracked fluctuation in Google SERPs. However, Google confirmed that the sudden movement in ranking was not related to Google Penguin or Google Panda.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-making-tweaks-search-results-says-no-update-announce-214401

2014 Google Updates

2014 was the year of the famous Google Panda Algorithm Update which hammered a lot of website rankings. Google also refreshed Pigeon and Penguin Updates. This year, Google made a big decision by removing the Google Authorship functionality.

 Major Updates

Google Pigeon Expanded (22^nd December, 2014)

Google expanded the Google Pigeon Algoithm update that rolled out on 24^th July, 2014. Though the update was confirmed on 22^nd December, but, it was rolled out as early as 19^th in UK, Canada and Australia. This update brought significant volatility in Maps results in UK, Australia and Canada.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-pigeon-update-rolls-uk-canada-australia-211576

Penguin 3.0 Update (18^th October, 2014)

Google released its sixth Penguin refresh update on 18^th October, 2014. This update was smaller than expected as it only affected 1 % of US English queries whereas the original Penguin update affected >3% of the queries. Recoveries of sites penalised by previous Penguin updated were reported.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-first-penguin-update-year-206169

Panda 4.1 (#27) (23^rd September, 2014)

Google started a slow roll out of an improved Panda algorithm in early 20^th of September. Few signals that helped Panda identify the low quality content more precisely were discovered in this update. This global roll-out affected 3-5% of the queries.

Source:https://searchengineland.com/panda-update-rolling-204313

Google Authorship Removed (28th August, 2014)

Google completely removed Authorship functionality from its search results and webmaster tools on 28^th August, 2014. This update no longer tracked data from content using rel=author markup.

Source: https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/HZf3KDP1Dm8

HTTPS/SSL Update (6th August, 2014)

Google announced that the sites with secure connections will be given higher priority with slight boost in the ranking from 6^th August, 2014. Google carried out months of speculations before rolling out this update.

Source:https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

Google Pigeon Update (24th July, 2014)

Google rolled out this local algorithm update with an aim to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results. This algorithm update had an impact on local search results rankings with an increase and decrease in website referrals, leads and businesses of some sites.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-makes-significant-changes-local-search-ranking-algorithm-197778

Payday Loan Algorithm 3.0 (12^th June, 2014)

After less than a month of Payday Loan 2.0 anti-spam update, Google rolled out another major update, Payday Loan Algorithm 3.0 update. Payday Loan 3.0 targeted more spammy queries whereas Payday 2.0 targeted specifically spammy sites.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-payday-loan-3-spam-18695.html

Panda 4.0 Update (#26) (20^th May, 2014)

Panda 4.0 update rolled out with lots of chatter in SEO and webmaster forums causing sharp fluctuations in search result rankings. This major update included both algorithm update and a data refresh update affecting about 7.5% of English language queries.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-begins-rolling-panda-4-0-now-192043

Payday Loan Algorithm 2.0 Update (18^th May, 2014)

Payday Loan Algorithm 2.0 targeted very spammy queries and was totally unrelated to the Panda and Penguin algorithm. This global roll out had an impact on English queries by about 0.2%.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/official-google-payday-loan-algorithm-2-0-launched-targets-spammy-queries-192027

Page Layout Algorithm Update (#3) (6th February, 2014)

Google updated its Page Layout Algorithm, which is also known as “Top Heavy 3 Update” in the beginning of February month. This algorithm update targeted sites with too many ads above the fold in order to make search experience more efficient and quick.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-updates-page-layout-algorithm-go-sites-top-heavy-ads-183929

 Minor Updates

Penguin 3.0 Extended (11^th December, 2014)

Google spokesperson reported that the Penguin update is still rolling out and there won’t be a particularly distinct end point to the activity as Penguin is shifting to more continuous updates on 11^th Decembver, 2014. It confirmed to continuously optimise the algorithm with lots of minor updates.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-says-penguin-shift-continuous-updates-210580

Pirate Update #2 (21st October, 2014)

A major drop in rankings of sites with pirated content or those sites which violated copyright laws were spotted. However, this update did not have much effect on sites as it specifically targeted those sites which received DMCA takedown requests.

Related: https://torrentfreak.com/googles-new-downranking-hits-pirate-sites-hard-141023/

“In The News” Box Update (October, 2014)

Google replaced the news box in the search result with the box named “In the news”. This update spiked up the news results in SERP resulting substantial traffic changes of major sites.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/googles-news-listings-beyond-traditional-205213

Private Blog Networks De-Indexed (18th September, 2014)

Google started de-indexing the sites with private blog networks which resulted in to the high drop down of the traffic of various sites.

Related: https://www.nohatdigital.com/blog/pbn-sites-de-indexed/

Photos Removed from Authorship (28^th June, 2014)

To create a better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices, John Mueller announced they were dropping all the authorship photos from SERPs on 28^th June, 2015. Well, it took 3 days to complete the drop.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/bye-bye-author-pics

No Name Update (24^th March, 2014)

Webmasters noticed heavy fluctuations in search result rankings which cause lots of chattering in SEO and webmaster forums. But, there was no official confirmation from Google about any update.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-march-18313.html

Unnamed Update (8^th January, 2014)

A minor unofficial update was noticed by the webmasters though Google did not confirm it. Many people and webmasters noticed shifts in the search results.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-17935.html

2013 Google Updates

2013 was the year of new algorithm development and updates. Google developed and rolled out new algorithms such as “Hummingbird”, “Payday” and “Down Crowding” whose main focus were on semantic search and spammy queries.

Major Updates

Google Authorship Update (19^th December, 2013)

As promised by Matt Cutts in his keynote speech at Pubcon Las Vegas in October, there was the removal of authorship mark-up from the search results. Over a period of month, 15% of authorship drop-off was noticed which was the reason for the quality to go up.

Related: https://angular.marketing/2013/12/19/authorshippocalypse-google-authorship-penguin-finally-appeared/

Hummingbird Update (20^th August, 2013)

Google developed and rolled out a new search algorithm, called “Hummingbird” around 21^st of August whose main focus was on semantic search. This algorithm was developed especially to provide more personalised results although there was no report of penalties like that of Panda and Penguin.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-17268.html

Knowledge Graph Expansion Update (19^th July, 2013)

MozCast 10K Beta System tracked a number of queries which showed that there was an increase of over 50.4% in appearance of knowledge graph.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/the-day-the-knowledge-graph-exploded

Panda Recovery Update (18^th July, 2013)

This soft Panda update rolled out over 10 day period and was more finely targeted. This update was different than other Panda updates as many webmasters who were struck by Panda update were found claiming recovery.

Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-update-17094.html

Multi Week Algorithm Update (28^th June, 2013)

A massive signs of ranking volatility was seen which peaked up on 27^th of June according to data by MozCast. However, the pattern of this multi week algorithm was unclear and it did not reveal any general insights too.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/googles-multi-week-algorithm-update

Panda Dance Update (11^th June, 2013)

Matt Cutts announced that they will be rolling out Panda update monthly over 10 of 30 days. Google repeated this cycle for months which many people did not expect.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/googles-panda-dance-matt-cutts-confirms-panda-rolls-out-monthly-over-10-of-30-days-162950

Payday Loan Update (11^th June 2013)

An update was made on 11^th of June, 2013 to target “spammy queries” such as payday loan, pornographic and other spammed queries. This global update had roughly 0.3% impact of the US queries whereas it went higher than 4% for Turkish queries where web spam is typically higher.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-pay-day-loan-algorithm-google-search-algorithm-update-to-target-spammy-queries-162941

Penguin 2.0 Update (#4) (22^nd May, 2013)

Google released the fourth iteration of Google’s spam-fighting “Penguin Update”. This update was an update to the algorithm, not just the data refresh which affected 2.3% of the English queries.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/penguin-4-with-penguin-2-0-generation-spam-fighting-is-now-live-160544

Down Crowding Update (21^st May, 2013)

In earlier days, there were problems such as one domain taking too many spots on the page. So, to solve this issue Google released down crowding update. The main goal of this update was to maintain a balance between providing diverse results and at the same time return the most authoritative search results for the query.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-domain-clustering-change-159997

Phantom Update (9^th May, 2013)

There was a huge uptick in chatter around major ranking and search result fluctuation in the period around 9^th May. Although, it was confirmed that the update was “Phantom Update” but, the exact nature of the update was unknown.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-now-16762.html

Minor Updates

No Name Update (17^th December, 2013)

Although there was no confirmation of the update, a highest level of SERP flux was recorded since Penguin 2.0 on 17^th of December. The fluctuation in results was followed for a week.

Source: https://dejanseo.com.au/2nd-biggest-serp-flux-2013/

Unnamed Update (14^th November, 2013)

A large spike in chatter in the online discussion forums and social Medias were seen with the unusual activity tracked by lots of SERP tracking tools. However, there was no confirmation of this update by Google.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/was-there-a-november-14th-google-update

Penguin 2.1 (#5) Update (4^th October, 2013)

Penguin 2.1, a new version of Penguin affected roughly 1% of searches to the noticeable degree. This was just an update to Penguin update as there was no major changes seen.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-21-big-17479.html

In-depth Article Update (6^th August, 2013)

Google introduced new search results to help those users who are searching for in-depth articles. In-depth articles are like news results or local packs which are rich search elements and sits  in the left-hand column.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/08/in-depth-articles-in-search-results.html

No Name Update (26^th July 2013)

Though there was no official confirmation of the update, but many SERP tracking tools showed the signs.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-weekend-update-17142.html

Panda Update 25 (14^th March, 2013)

Panda Update 25 was the last manual push of Google’s Panda update as Matt Cutts pre-announced a Panda update at SMX West and told this update would be the last update before they integrate Panda into the Google’s algorithm.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-25-seems-to-have-hit-151732

Panda Update 24 (22^nd January 2013)

Google announced new Panda refresh update on 22^nd January 2013. This update had a noticeable impact on English queries by 1.2%.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-version-24-1-2-of-search-queries-impacted-146149

2012 Google Updates

Google rolled out a number of updates in 2012. Many sites were penalised after the roll out of “Pirate Penalty” update whose main focus was to penalise those sites with too many copy right notices.

Major Updates

Panda #23 Update (21^st December 2012)

Google rolled another Panda update right before the Christmas holiday impacting 1.3% of the search queries. Google said they will try to avoid updates during the holidays.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-update-23-impacting-1-3-of-queries-143271

Page Layout Update #2 (9th October, 2012)

Page Layout Update, also known as “Top Heavy 2 Update” which targeted too pages with too many ads above the fold. Less than 0.7 % of English queries were affected by this update.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-page-layout-algorithm-update-135847

August/September 65 Changes (4th October, 2012)

Google rolled out 65 updates that happened in August/September. Some of the changes included knowledge graph, entity predictions, synonyms search features, a Panda refresh and many more.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/10/search-quality-highlights-65-changes.html

Exact Match Domain (EMD) Update (27th September, 2012)

Exact Match Domain update changed the way Google handled exact domains by reducing lower quality domain matches. This update had an impact less than 0.6% of search queries.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/googles-emd-algo-update-early-data

Panda #20 Update (27th September 2012)

Google rolled out another major Panda update which had an impact of 2.4% on English search queries.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-20-released-2-4-of-english-queries-impacted-135291

7-Result SERPs (14th August, 2012)

With the release of “7-Result SERPs”, Google started displaying only 7 results from their traditional 10 listings per page.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/7-new-10-google-showing-fewer-results-131006

June/July 86 Google Updates (10th August, 2012)

Google released an official blog post on “June/July High Quality Highlights” which included 86 changes. Some of the changes included resource caching for mobile, images universal rankings, freshness and many more.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/08/search-quality-highlights-86-changes.html

DMCA/Pirate Penalty Update (10th August, 2012)

Google rolled out “DMCA”, also known as “Pirate Penalty” update which will start penalising the sites with number of copyright removal notices. The main aim of this update was to help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html

Link Warnings Update (19th July, 2012)

Google sent a number of unnatural link warnings to webmasters in March/April saying they should act on it. But, on 20^th June of 2012, Google had another announcement telling publishers to ignore the previous unnatural link warnings.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/insanity-google-sends-new-link-warnings-then-says-you-can-ignore-them-128297

May 39 Google Updates (7th June, 2012)

Google posted a blog highlighting 39 changes they made in the month of May. It included changes like unified soccer feature, improvements to NBA search feature, improvements to news rankings, inorganic backlinks signals application and many more.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/06/search-quality-highlights-39-changes.html

Penguin 1.1 (#2) Update (25th May, 2012)

Google rolled out Penguin 1.1, an update to the Penguin update. This was the first update to the Penguin update launched on April 24^th. The update had an impact of less than 0.1% of English searches.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-pushes-first-penguin-algorithm-update-122518

Knowledge Graph Update (16th May, 2012)

Google introduced Knowledge graph to discover new information quickly and easily. This SERP-integrated display provided supplement object about certain people, places and things that Google knows about.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/introducing-knowledge-graph-things-not.html

April 52 Google Updates (4th May, 2012)

Google posted a blog with 52 minor updates including categorise paginated documents, more language relevant navigational results, anchors bug fix, domain diversity, improvement on local navigational searches, better query interpretation and many more.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/05/search-quality-highlights-53-changes.html

Penguin Update (24^th April, 2012)

This was another step by Google to reward high quality sites and penalise the sites with the black hat web spam techniques such as keyword stuffing, link schemes, link farming and so on.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

Parked Domain Bug (16^th April, 2012)

Though it was not intentional an intentional algorithm change, Google mistaken some domains as parked domain and caused the drop in ranking.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/dropped-in-rankings-google-mistake-over-parked-domains-118979

March 50-Pack Update (3^rd April, 2012)

Another batch of updates which includes Panda 3.4, improvements to handling of symbols for indexing, better scoring, site links data refresh, UI refresh, improvements to results for navigational queries, high quality sites algorithm data update, better local results and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/04/search-quality-highlights-50-changes.html

February 40-Pack Update (27^th February, 2012)

Google published a second set of search quality highlights on their Inside Search blog with 40 new updates which offered more coverage for related searches, less duplication, more locally relevant predictions, and refreshed per-URL country information and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/02/search-quality-highlights-40-changes.html

Venice (27^th February, 2012)

Google’s Venice update localised organic results on broad search queries. After this update, when a searcher typed in queries without any geo-modifier, local sites started showing up. This was surely great news for local SEOs and usability.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update

January 17-Pack Update (3^rd February 2012)

Another round of search quality highlights were released by Google which included faster auto-complete, fresher results, better spelling, high-quality sites algorithm improvements, cross-language refinements, image search quality and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/02/17-search-quality-highlights-january.html

Page layout Update (19^th January, 2012)

Page layout update also known has “Top Heavy #1 Update” penalised the sites with too much of ad-space above the “fold”. This update was made with an effort to help searchers find more high-quality websites in the search results.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

Search + Your World Update (10^th January, 2012)

Google introduced new “Search Plus Your World” feature, which turned Google+ into an essential social network for any search marketer by providing personal results, profiles in search and people and pages.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html

January 30-Pack Update (5^th January, 2012)

Google performed a series of updates related to relevancy, image search, soft 404 detection, accuracy, more rich snippets, spam detection, safer searching, faster mobile browsing and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/01/30-search-quality-highlights-with.html

Minor Updates

Knowledge Graph Expansion (4th December 2012)

Knowledge graph was now available in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian and Italian.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/12/get-smarter-answers-from-knowledge_4.html

Panda #22 Update (21st November 2012)

Another minor Panda refresh which affected 0.8% of the search queries.

Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-22-confirmed-16017.html

Panda #21 Update (5th November 2012)

Another Panda Update affecting 1.1% of US queries in English, whereas it affected about 0.4% of queries world wide.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-panda-update-21-138902

Penguin #3 Update (5th October 2012)

Another minor refresh to Penguin update which was not as bad as expected.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-3-15802.html

Panda3.9.2 (#19) Update (18th September, 2012)

Google rolled out another minor Panda update affecting less than 0.7% of the total search queries.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-392-15720.html

Panda 3.9.1 (#18) Update (20th August 2012)

Google confirmed another Panda refresh affecting less than 1 % of the total search queries.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-391-15606.html

Panda 3.9 (#17) Update (24th July 2012)

Another Panda refresh affecting 1 % of the total search queries.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-3-9-128529

Panda 3.8 (#16) Update (25th June 2012)

Panda 3.8 was another minor update to Panda algorithm. It had an impact of 1 % of the total search queries.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-update-version-3-8-on-june-25th-125945

Panda 3.7 (#15) Update (8th June 2012)

Google rolled out Panda 3.7 update affecting less than 1% of search queries.

Source: https://twitter.com/google/status/212205487037493249

Panda 3.6 (#14) Update (27th April, 2012)

Google confirmed another Panda data refresh. It was a limited update and did not affect that many sites.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/panda-update-3-6-on-april-27th-120227

Panda 3.5 (#13) Update (19^th April, 2012)

Google quietly rolled out Panda 3.5 update which didn’t have much impact. The main target of this update was low-quality content.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/winners-losers-from-googles-webspam-update-119493

Panda 3.4 (#12) Update (23^rd March, 2012)

Another Panda update which targeted low-quality websites. Panda 3.4 update had an impact of 1.6% of the search results.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-says-panda-update-is-rolling-out-now-116444

Search Quality Video (12^th March 2012)

Google published a video into a search quality meeting for those interested in the algorithm. The video included a context about the Google’s process and their priorities. However, this was not an algorithm change.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/03/video-search-quality-meeting-uncut.html

Panda 3.3 (#11) Update (27^th February 2012)

Another Panda refresh, which refreshed the data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-panda-update-link-evaluation-local-search-rankings-113078

Panda 3.2 (#10) Update (18^th January 2012)

Google Confirmed another minor Panda update where some sites that were hit by Panda regained their traffic levels.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-panda-3-2-update-confirmed-109321

2011 Google Updates

A number of 10 pack updates were rolled out in 2011. The algorithm updates of 2011 had an impact of 1% to 40% of search queries.

Major Updates

December 10-Pack (1^st December 2011)

Google rolled out a second round up of 10 updates including related query results refinements, more comprehensive indexing, parked domain, auto complete predictions, original content, and fresher and more complete blog search results and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2011/12/search-quality-highlights-new-monthly.html

10-Pack of Updates (14^th November, 2011)

Google announced 10 smaller changes that they made which included cross-language information retrieval, snippets with more page content and less header/menu content, fresh search results, rich snippets and so on.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2011/11/ten-recent-algorithm-changes.html

Freshness Update (3^rd November 2011)

Google rolled out “Freshness” update affecting 35% of the total search queries. This algorithm was designed to give the most up-to-date search results.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html

Query Encryption (18^th October 2011)

In order to make search more secure, Google announced they would be encrypting search queries. Google enhanced their default search experience for their signed in users.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html

Pagination Elements (15^th September 2011)

Google introduced the rel =“ next” and rel=”prev” link attributes to indicate the relationship between the component URLs in a paginated series. This update was a great help to the crawl and duplication problems created by pagination.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

Expanded Sitelinks (16^th August 2011)

Google expanded the display of Sitelinks, creating direct access to more of the site. The number of site links per query was increased from 8 to 12.

Source: https://search.googleblog.com/2011/08/evolution-of-sitelinks-expanded-and.html

Panda 2.4 (#6) (12^th August 2011)

Google rolled out Panda 2.4 internationally to most languages except for Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The main focus of this update was to return high-quality sites to users. This change in algorithm impacted 6-9% of search queries for most languages.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/08/high-quality-sites-algorithm-launched.html

Google+ (28^th June, 2011)

Google launched Google+, a serious competitor to Facebook after a number of social media failures on 28^th June, 2011. It was an attempt to make Google better by including user, user’s relationship and their interests.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html

Schema.org (2^nd June. 2011)

Google, Bing and Yahoo united together to make search listings even richer through the structures data, Schema. With the sole use of Meta data, these three search engines enhanced the search results display.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/schema-org-google-bing-yahoo-unite-79554

Panda 2.0 (#2) (11^th April, 2011)

Google rolled out Panda 2.0 globally to all English-language Google users and also incorporated new user feedback signals. This user feedback signals helped people to find search results.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/04/high-quality-sites-algorithm-goes.html

The +1 Button (30^th March 2011)

Google introduced +1 button on 30^th March 2011 which was an easy way for Google users to share their content recommendation right from the search result pages.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/03/introducing-1-button.html

Panda/Farmer (23^rd February 2011)

Google launched a big update, the first of its kind. Google’s new update, “Panda” mainly targeted link farms and low-quality content. This update had an impact of 12% of search results.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers

Attribution Update (28^th January 2011)

Google rolled out an algorithm change to drive spam levels even lower, to stop those scrapers form stealing content from others. This update affected 2% of the search queries.

Source: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

Overstock.com Penalty (January 2011)

Google penalised OverStock for implementing bad SEO practices on their site. Since then, Google started calling out sites publicly for their SEO practices.

Related: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704520504576162753779521700

Minor Updates

Panda 3.1 (#9) (18^th November 2011)

It was another minor update to Google Panda Update. This update impacted less than 1% of searches.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/minor-google-panda-update-on-november-18th-101891

Panda “Flux” (#8) (5^th October 2011)

Matt Cutts confirmed Panda “Flux” Update which had an impact of 2% of total search queries. Though Google confirmed this “Flux” update, but, they didn’t provide any detail information about this update.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/taking-a-closer-look-at-the-googles-panda-2-5-flux-97603

Panda 2.5 (#7) (28^th September 2011)

Google released another Panda update as a part of a commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/confirmed-google-panda-2-5-update-arrived-this-week-95222

Panda 2.3 (#5) (23^rd July 2011)

It was another small update to Google Panda filter which incorporated some new signals that helped to differentiate between the higher and lower quality sites. After this minor update, many sites ranked higher.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-2-3-update-is-live-87230

Panda 2.2 (#4) — June 21, 2011

Panda 2.2 was an update to the Panda filter. Some of the webmasters found their sites ranking better with this Panda filter breaking out, whereas others were hit for the first time.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-update-2-2-is-live-82611

Panda 2.1 (#3) (9^th May 2011)

Panda 2.1 was a minor update to Google Panda Update. This update impacted fewer rankings than in the past updates.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/its-panda-update-2-not-3-google-says-76508

2010 Google Updates

Google rolled out four major updates along with some minor updates in 2010. The major updates were Google Instant, Caffeine, Mayday and Google places.

Major Updates

Google Instant (8^th September 2010)

Google Instant was an expansion to Google Suggest, which helped people get results as they type their queries. This search before type update came with features such as dynamic results, ability to predict and scroll to search.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

Caffeine Update (8^th June, 2010)

Google rolled out a new web indexing system named “Caffeine” which provided 50% fresher results for web searches than the old index system. It created the largest collection of web content that Google has ever offered. Now, finding links to relevant content be it a news story or a forum post, much easier and sooner.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

Mayday Update (1^st May 2010)

The release of Google’s Mayday algorithm had a significant impact on the long tail traffic. Many sites with large-scale thin content were found hit hardly, foreshadowing the Panda update.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022293.html

Google Places (20^th April 2010)

Google turned Local Business Center to Google Places with this update. Along with this change, Google added few features like services areas, business photo shoots, customised QR code, favourite places and a simple new way to advertise.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-google-places.html

Minor Updates

Social Signals Use (December 2010)

Google and Bing announced that they are using social signals to influence rankings. They use social data from Facebook and Twitter to ranking the site.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

Negative Reviews (December 2010)

Google updated its algorithm to fix the issue of negative reviews. After the breaking out of the story about an eCommerce site using negative reviews to ranking in Google, Google made this rare move.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/being-bad-to-your-customers-is-bad-for.html

Instant Visual (November 2010)

Google introduced a magnifying glass icon on search results which allowed the user to quickly view a preview of landing pages directly from SERPs. However, this did not last too long.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-results-instant-previews.html

Brand Update (August 2010)

Google allowed the same domain to appear multiple times on SERP. This was not an algorithm change. However, Google confirmed it to be a simple ranking change.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-results-dominated-by-one-domain-49025

2009 Google Updates

Google had a huge infrastructure change in 2009 with the introduction of “Real Time Search”.

Major Updates

Real Time Search (7^th December 2009)

With the introduction of “Real Time Search”, real time became the real deal. This feature brought search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time, mobile and social search.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html

Google Caffeine (10^th August 2009)

Caffeine was Google’s huge infrastructure change, a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. This change was intended to push the envelope on size, speed indexing, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/08/help-test-some-next-generation.html

Vince Update (20^th February, 2009)

Google released a major update on 20^th February, 2009 which brought a significant change in how Google returned results for a certain set of keywords. Many webmasters believed the focus of this major update on trust, authority and reputation was all to support big brands.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-searchs-vince-change-google-says-not-brand-push-16803

Rel-canonical Tag (12^th February 2009)

Yahoo, Google and Microsoft announced their support to Canonical Tag. This change allowed people to publicly specify the preferred version of an Url.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

2008 Google Updates

Google added a search box feature in 2008. There were no minor updates noticed.

Major Updates

Google Suggest (25^th August 2007)

After testing literally for years, Google finally added this major search box feature. After this change, related searches automatically appeared below where you start typing in the search box.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/googlecom-finally-gets-google-suggest-feature-14626

Dewey Update (2^nd April, 2008)

There was a huge discussion in the search community regarding the big changes in the Google search results, but the specifics were unclear. However, Google confirmed this was all because of “Dewey Update”, it had been a while since Google named a update. This was also the first major update widely noticed by webmasters in a while.

Related: https://searchengineland.com/google-update-dewey-google-confirms-algorithm-change-13679

2007 Google Updates

Major Updates

Universal Search (16^th May, 2007)

This was not an algorithmic update by Google, rather integration to traditional search results. With universal search update, Google launched the new architecture by breaking down the traditionally separated various search properties and integrated the vast amounts of information from images, maps, books, videos and news.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html

Minor Updates

Buffy Update (17^th June 2007)

Though it was not clear what happened with this update, Matt Cutts explained that this update was simply a collection of smaller changes. The name “Buffy” was given to this update in honour of Vanessa Fox who was leaving Google.

Related: https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/013882.html

2006 Google Updates

There were no algorithm updates in this year. Though there was quite a fuss in SEO community, Google didn’t confirm any updates or refresh.

Major Updates

Big Daddy Update (1^st November 2005)

“Big Daddy Update” was technically intended to update infrastructure. This update changed the way Google handled URL canonicalization, redirects and other many technical issues.  This update was announced on 1^st of November, but it rolled out for few months, wrapping up in the beginning week of March month.

Related: https://moz.com/blog/todd-greg-matt-cutts-on-webmasterradio

Jagger Update (19^th October 2005)

Jagger was another significant update by Google which targeted low-quality links including link farms, reciprocal links and paid links.

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-jagger-update-is-official/2349/

Google Local and Maps Merge (6^th October 2005)

Google made it easier for searchers by merging Google local and maps together. Searchers were able to find both local search and mapping information together on the same search results page by just using Google Maps.

Source: https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-merges-local-and-maps-products_06.html

Google Sitemaps (2^nd June, 2005)

A new program was introduced by Google, “Google Sitemaps” which allowed webmasters and site owners to create an XML files containing all their URLs that they want Google to crawl and add them in web index. However, this update was proved to be useful which gave a good influence to SEO.

Related: https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2061916/New-Google-Sitemaps-Web-Page-Feed-Program

Bourbon Update (2^nd May 2005)

Google came up with an update “Bourbon” to change the algorithm in terms of how to duplicate and non-canonical (www vs. non-www) URLs are handled. This update affected 3.5% of the entire queries.

Related: https://battellemedia.com/archives/2005/06/google_update_bourbon.php

Nofollow Update (18^th January 2005)

Google added a small yet very important feature “the Nofollow Attribute” which worked against the comment spam. The “Nofollow Update” was not a traditional algorithm change but had a significant impact since it combated spam and controlled outbound link quality.

Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html

Minor Updates

Gilligan Update (8^th September 2005)

Webmasters sensed changes over the web; however, Google didn’t confirm any update. Rather they claimed it was just a refresh.

Related: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2061165/googles-cutts-says-not-an-update-i-say-an-update-just-not-a-dance

Personalised Search (28^th June 2005)

With the release of personalised search, users were able to use search history that they’ve been building to get the better search results. Google was able to make the results more personal and more accurate with this update.

Related: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/search-gets-personal.html

Allegra Update (2^nd February 2005)

On 2^nd February of 2005, many webmasters went through ranking changes. But, the exact specifics of this update were unclear. Some of the people thought this update affected the “Sandbox” whereas the rest thought the LSI has been changed.

Related: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2047678/googles-feb-2005-update

2004 Google Updates

Two popular algorithm updates “Brandy” and “Austin” were rolled out in the year 2004 which focused in LSI, link neighbourhood and so on.

Brandy Update (17^th February 2004)

Lots of changes were encountered because of the “Brandy Update” released by Google. The changes seen were massive index expansion, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), the concept of link neighbourhood and increased attention to anchor text relevance.

Related: https://archive.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040217GooglesBrandyUpdateExposed.html

Austin Update (23^rd January 2004)

Google came up with another update “Austin Update” to fill the hole or missing point left by “Florida Update” released on 16^th November of 2003. Google was found continuing the crackdown on tricky on-page tricks; Google included invisible text and Meta-tag stuffing.

Related: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-latest-on-update-austin-googles-january-update/237/

2003 Google Updates

2003 was the year of only major updates.

 Major Updates

Florida Update (16^th November 2003)

Florida is probably the larger and aggressive updates which completely shake out SEO world. During this update, many sites that applied low-value SEO tactics like keyword stuffing and so on lost their site ranking. This update made many business owners unhappy.

Related: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2066309/what-happened-to-my-site-on-google

Fritz Update (1^st July 2003)

Google’s Fritz update ended the monthly “Google Dance”, where the index was updated every month. Instead, they came with more accurate information by the indexing every day. This every day small changes were referred as “ever flux”.

Related: https://www.wired.com/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/

Esmerelda Update (15^th June 2003)

Esmerelda update had some huge structure changes regarding Google update. This update was probably the last regular update of Google.

Dominic Update (14^th May 2003)

Though the exact nature of this update was not cleared, many sites experienced bounces. Google bots were found crawling through the web and bouncing the sites right and left. This update also changed the way Google counted and reported back links.

Cassandre Update (12^th April 2003)

Cassandre was yet another major update released by Google which mainly focused on basic link issues. Other main focuses of this update were massive linking from co-domains, hidden text and hidden links. Google has allowed banned sites to submit a reconsideration request in this update. This happened for the first time.

Boston Update (7^th March 2003)

Google released its first named update in March month of 2003. This was the first named major update. This update had a great impact on SERPs as with this update Google improved their algorithm further.

Minor Updates

Supplemental Index (September 2003)

After Google released Fritz update, it released another update to index more documents, which would help them to do so without having to hurt the performance.

Related: https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067049/Search-Engine-Size-Wars-Googles-Supplemental-Results

2002 Google Updates

Google’s First Documented Update (26^th September 2002)

Google released its first documented update in September month of 2002. All the SEO arguments and Google dance started from this update. This is the first major update performed by Google since its establishment.

Related: https://searchengineshowdown.com/2002/09/google_dance_begun/

2000 Google Updates

Google Toolbar (December 2000)

Google launched toolbar for all browsers as well as toolbar page rank (TBPR) and from this, all the SEO arguments started.

Source: https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/12/google-launches-google-toolbar.html

1998

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin on September 4, 1998. Though the domain google.com was already registered on 15^th September 1997, only after a year they filed for Incorporation on September 4 of 1998. Since then the journey of Google officially began.

 Did we miss any updates in our blog post? Have you experienced Google penalty before? If yes, how did you recover your site from it? Please share with us in the comment box below.