Google Algo Updates: A Complete List of Changes That Could Affect Your Site’s Traffic

If you have noticed a drop in website traffic recently, it could be due to several reasons. The most obvious one could be the changes Google does to its core algorithms and any additional changes. Apart from the algorithm changes Google makes, a website’s traffic could suffer due to de-indexing of blog networks, changes in the image algorithms, or something similar.

If you have a lot invested in your website and rely on organic traffic to develop and grow your business, it would be best to stay on top of the Google Update schedule. This way, you can prepare your website beforehand and don’t experience a significant drop in traffic after the updates take effect.

While there is no way you can be more innovative than Google, you can be smart and take a different approach – future-proof your website, preparing it to recover quickly once the new Google updates take effect. If you aren’t very familiar with a website’s technical aspects, we have you covered with a complete list of changes of the Google ranking algorithm that could affect your website’s traffic.

We’ve arranged the most important Google algorithm updates by month and year, and you can see if one or more of them coincide with the times your website experienced traffic fluctuations:

2022

28 June 2022 – Google changed the documentation about Googlebot; the Googlebot “sees” the first 15 megabytes of a website when fetching a search result. Basically, Google only indexes the first 15 MB of the content of an HTML or supported text-based file.

9 June 2022 – the May 2022 Core Update is complete, some sites have experienced positive, and some negative changes.

What to do? Read Eliav Lankri tips after May 2022 core update

25 May 2022 – Google rolled out the May 2022 core update, improving overall Search and keeping pace with the changing nature of the web.

6 – 8 May 2022 – significant volatility experienced by plenty of websites probably related to the 1 May update.

2 May 2022 – some websites experienced fluctuations that were probably related to unconfirmed changes or updates in the Google Search Algorithm.

21 – 22 April 2022 – Larger Google Search Algorithm Update took place over two days.

12 April 2022 – Google finished rolling the March 2022 Google product reviews update.

6 April 2022 – Plenty of websites experienced fluctuations that were probably residual aftereffects of the March 2022 Product Reviews update.

29 March 2022 – based on the rollout of the Google Product Reviews update, sites with product reviews have experienced drops in traffic which are expected to get back to normal.

25 March 2022 – Google Search rolled out a visual search interface on mobile searches in grid format, and many sites noted fluctuations in traffic, especially related to video and image searches.

24 March 2022 – Google rolled out the March 2022 Product Reviews Update, which is planned to roll out within three weeks fully. It checks the product review content, rewarding and promoting sites with insightful analysis and original research.

20 March 2022 – Google Search ranking Algorithm update happened over the past few days, with sites experiencing significant fluctuations in traffic. Google has not confirmed or denied anything.

11 March 2020 – Google tested the Things to Know in the search results, announcing the first of several upcoming changes to the search result pages

04 March 2022 – Google finished rolling out the Google page experience update for desktop, and not many sites experienced significant fluctuations.

25 February 2022 – an unconfirmed update of the search ranking algorithm probably occurred, with many sites noticing a significant traffic loss.

23 February 2022 – Google started rolling out the desktop version of the Google Page Experience update by the end of March 2022.

22 February 2022 – Google updated the DMCA – the Pirate Penalty Algorithm.

17 February 2022 – a possible Google search ranking algorithm update is in the making, as some sites have experienced tremors and some tracking tools have spiked.

07 February 2022 – a possible Google ranking and tracking algorithm update, with sites experiencing mixed results.

23 January 2022 – many sites experience position changes, pointing to the Google ranking algorithm changes. Still, Google has not officially confirmed any official changes.

19 & 20 January 2022 – signs of another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update, with many sites experiencing unusual activity.

14 & 15 January 2022 – a possible yet unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update; Google’s tracking tools showed higher volatility.

12 January 2022 – there were speculations that Google rolled out a search ranking algorithm update, but Google did not confirm this. However, many sites experienced unnatural bot traffic.

11 January 2022 – Google announced they’ll soon (in February) bring the Google Page Experience Update for desktop pages.

2021

27 & 28 December 2021 – a jolt occurred in the Google search ranking algorithm, which may be related to the previous updates, a fluctuation, or a bottleneck issue.

22 December 2021 – Google wrapped up their Google Product Reviews Update, and it took three weeks to complete.

17 December 2021 – many websites experienced significant tremors, chatter spikes, and traffic fluctuations related to the Google Product Reviews Update.

16 December 2021 – another update related to the Google Local Search Ranking Update from November 2021 was confirmed by Google.

08 December 2021 – many websites experienced traffic fluctuations, and Google made changes to the Google Local Search related to the November 2021 Update.

01 December 2021 – Google announced a Google Algorithm Update that should conclude around the holidays, and it will target product review content.

30 November 2021 – Google completed the November 2021 Core Update. It was announced that there could be some fluctuations in local search rankings.

22 November 2021 – Google rolls out a new look on the Google Search Console, improving accessibility and user experience. The complete rollout will take several months, where small changes will happen over time to help user experience in general.

17 November 2021 – Google rolls out the November 2021 Core Update. It is expected that the complete roll out should take up to two weeks to be completed.

17 November 2021 – a change in the SERPs happened with Translated Results; however, this only affected Indian searches at this time. It is expected to help publishers reach more audiences by selecting the best, most adequate pages from different languages and displaying the translated title tag and meta description from a foreign language to the user’s language.

14 November 2021 – Google confirms that bolding the critical text throughout the text can help SEO and allow the Google indexing algorithm to better understand the content.

12 November 2021 – Googe executives announce that it will take more than 30 pages for a website to build authority. It implies that in order for a website to be authoritative, it will need to have regular updates and more than 30 pages of content and be better than the competition.

08 November 2021 – Google tests the IndexNow protocol for sustainability after Yandex and Microsoft Bing announced its implementation a few weeks back.

05 November 2021 – Google renames the Google My Business section into Google Business Profile, adding significant changes to how business owners can verify their businesses and manage their profiles.

19 October 2021 – Google updates their Google Search Quality Raters Guideline. It was past due, as the last update to this document was over a year ago.

14 October 2021 – Google announces its update to the continuous scrolling for mobile searches. It is expected that the See More button on mobile searches will soon be obsolete, and people will be given a seemingly endless list of results. It is expected to help marketers, especially those who are barely reaching page one.

08 October 2021 – Google publishes help documents on controlling titles and descriptions in search and introduces the term title link for the search result’s title in the SERPs.

23 September 2021 – Google fixed issues with the Search Console, bringing the performance reports to date.

22 September 2021 – Google announced that they plan to roll out booking links for basic admission and other available ticket options for its users.

09 – 13 September 2021 – Google made an unconfirmed update that we expect will continue in the next period. It caused a drop in rankings for high-profile pages and an increase in rankings of low-profile pages.

06 September 2021 – an unconfirmed Google Search algorithm ranking update took place over Labor Day weekend, but it did not cause significant effects

01 September 2021  – Google kicked off September with a core algorithm update, and it went from using the HTML title tag from 80% to 87% of the time. Some websites saw significant fluctuations in traffic due to the changes, and Google guides how to encourage Google’s algorithm to show your HTML titles.

25 August 2021 – Saw an unconfirmed Google algorithm update. According to some sources, it resulted from a delayed update of the Google Link Spam update that started on 26 July 2021 and ended on 24 August 2021.

19 August 2021 – the 26 July 2021 Google Core Update is slowly winding down, but websites are still feeling the effects and experiencing fluctuations

18 August 2021 – Google dabbled with an unconfirmed update of its ranking system and search result snippets. Many SERPs were displayed with header tags instead of titles in the search snippets, which web admins noted.

15 August 2021 – websites behaved unexpectedly these last few days, which is most likely due to the updates of the July 2021 Core update, the so-called link spam update.

09 August 2021 – Google continues to tweak and adjust its Search Ranking algorithm after the July 2021 Core Update.

July 2021 Core Update – The second part of the planned 2021 Core updates is live now. It affects the quality of a website and favors websites with quality content and qualifying links. Websites with poor content and low-quality links may experience a drop in traffic due to the update. The July 2021 Core Update also affects link spam, as it identifies sites with intentional spammy links that try to manipulate rankings.

June 2021 Core Update – the June 2021 Core Update was divided into several parts and indirectly affected sites. This update focused on improving the understanding of your content’s performance. It is not directly aimed at user experience. The June 2021 Core update brought the Search Console Insights, allowing website owners in-depth analytics of the performance of the content, with an overview of all essential insights.

April 2021 – this update affected the ranking systems and focused on rewarding websites with quality content. It is beneficial for sites that provide in-depth product reviews with rich content and knowledgeable reviews.

February/March 2021 – this is an unconfirmed update affecting the featured snippets. Google jokingly announced that the featured snippets are on holiday.

2020

December 2020 – the December 2020 Core update mainly impacted user-generated content and sites with medical content. The December 2020 update aimed to improve natural language processing, enabling Google to show the most appropriate content that matches their search.

September/October 2020 – Google tackled a problem with the indexing bug. After a measured drop in indexed pages in September, Google fixed this problem around the middle of October.

August 2020 – Google experienced a glitch in their indexing system. For a few hours, the rankings changed significantly and wreaked havoc in the search results, causing panic with many website owners. The issue was due to a bug and was swiftly resolved.

May 2020 – May 2020 Core Update caused significant fluctuations in the rankings. It was soon resolved, and many sites were affected only temporarily until the broad core update took place.

January 2020 – the January 2020 Core update was introduced, affecting site rankings with many sites experiencing huge traffic fluctuations. January 2020 also saw changes in the way URLs are showing in the Featured Snippets to impact organic traffic and CTRs.

2019

October/December 2019 – Google upgraded the search algorithm to support the BERT natural language processing model and to be able to understand the natural language searches better and understand the context. The initial upgrade began in October 2019, with the international BERT rollout supporting 70 languages in December 2019.

September 2019 – the September 2019 Core Update brought changes; namely, sites with quality content saw improved rankings. Many sites with poor quality content noted a lowering in ranking and traffic.

June 2019 – Google rolled out a broad core algorithm update named June 2019 Core Update, affecting site diversity and quality. It meant that people would not see more than two listings from the same site in the top results, which affected organic listings.

March 2019 – the March 2019 Core Update was rolled out, and it influenced the search algorithm, and any site that implemented E-A-T improvements noted increased changes and good results.

2018

August 2018 – the famous Google “Medic” Core Update took place, impacting many websites, mainly with medical, dietary, and nutrition content. This Core Update affected sites with poor quality content, and many of these saw a lowering of their ranking and the organic traffic.

July 2018 – Google started labeling all non-HTTPS sites as “not secure.” The security warning affects all sites with only HTTP protocols, and Google started displaying the now well-known warning screen.

June 2018 – the Mobile Speed Update was rolled out, using the mobile page speed as a ranking factor. It is now a standard in the site ranking, with mobile-friendly websites getting a priority in ranking.

March 2018 – the Core Update introduced in March 2018 aimed to give an advantage to quality sites. Several more core algorithm updates accompanied the March 2018 Core Update.

2017

December 2017 – the “Maccabees” update was rolled out, although not officially confirmed by Google. This update affected quality websites and gave advance to sites with quality content instead of websites with exact match domains getting the priority. Many celebrity websites were hit and lowered in ranking.

March 2017 – the “Fred” update was a major quality update. It affected websites primarily for SEO reasons, with poor content, and rewarded websites with excellent E-A-T (Experience, Authority, Trust) policies. This month also brought the “Owl” update, where offensive results were removed from autosuggest and the featured snippets.

2016

September 2016 – Google introduced Penguin 4.0, a massive update to the Penguin algorithm. This update no longer demotes a site but devalues the unnatural links. The good thing is that a website will not get penalized but will lower in ranking. During this time, Google also introduced the “Possum” update that affected local searches.

February 2016 – Google made changes in the SERP layout, removing the side ads and adding four paid ad places at the top of the results page. It influenced CTRs and organic traffic for high-volume keywords.

2015

October 2015 – RankBrain was announced. RankBrain is a machine learning AI technology that helps deliver better search results, identifying search intent. RankBrain was actually introduced in spring 2015.

July 2015 – Google announced a Panda 4.2 refresh.

April 2015 – “Mobilegeddon,” the famous algorithm update that mobile rankings will be different for mobile-friendly sites. Google boosted the websites identified as mobile-friendly and only affected mobile searches.

2014

December 2014 – Google introduced several updates. One was the Pigeon expansion to English-speaking countries, and the other was announcing the continuous updates of the Penguin algorithm.

October 2014 – the launch of Pirate update, targeting illegal torrent sites and sites promoting pirated content.

August 2014 – Google introduced a change giving priority to websites with HTTPS/SSL encryption. Even though the initial rollout did not cause significant changes in ranking then, now we’ve come to rely only on websites with the HTTPS protocols in place. The ones without this security measure are getting demoted in the SERPs.

July 2014 – the local SEO world saw significant changes due to the introduction of Pigeon, the algorithm designed to improve local searches.

May 2014 – Google introduced a large Panda update affecting many sites. The same month, Google also rolled out Payday Loan 2.0, targeting spammy queries in competitive niches.

2013

August 2013 – Google introduced Hummingbird, a core search algorithm update working on displaying more precise search results faster. The websites that have original, high-quality content will still have priority over the poor-quality websites. But with Hummingbird, Google was able to index and process the sites faster and discern the high-quality ones.

2012

August 2012 – Google started to penalize websites with repeat copyright violations via DMCA takedown requests.

April 2012 – Google introduced Penguin as a way to penalize over-optimized content, cases of keyword stuffing, and other spam factors, rewarding quality sites.

February 2012 – the Venice update was aimed at local searches, integrating local search data and providing more complete search results for local queries.

January 2012 – 30-pack update was released, and Google stated that image searches, landing page quality detection, relevant site-links, rich snippets, and more are affected, all in the name of providing a better search experience to users.

2011

November 2011 – Google introduced the Freshness update, giving priority to sites with fresh content. This update significantly impacted the time-sensitive results and focused on improving rankings of websites with more recent content.

February 2011 – the official introduction of the Panda algorithm update took place. It affected content farms, thin content, and sites with high ad-to-content ratios.

Conclusion

After considering all the Google core algorithm updates, we’ve selected the most important ones that can and do affect the traffic your website is getting. Google will continue to introduce changes and tweaks to its core search algorithms as its main drive is to display the best search results to its users and improve user experience. You need to follow these updates, constantly upgrade the SEO on your website, and make sure your website will always be in step with the changes.