List of Goggle Updates

Google updates are essential for webmasters and SEOs all over the world. When a website’s ranking or SEO visibility drops, these algorithm updates, filters, data refreshes, or other alterations are often to blame.

Google may be a fickle thing. The Google algorithm is critical to the success of your web content, but no one fully understands how it works (except for the elusive Google search-quality team, of course).

Google’s search engine is still constantly evolving. Google did not become the world’s most popular search engine without putting its users first. It progressed to where it is now by continually improving its algorithm to meet the needs of its users and producing the best possible results (not to mention engaging users with new daily doodles on the Google homepage).

List of the Major Google Updates

Panda

On February 23, 2011, Google launched the Panda Update to tackle thin, duplicate, or plagiarized content, keyword stuffing, content farms, websites with high ad-to-content ratios, and other quality issues. It was also created to recognize and reward original, high-quality content.

You need to know what Google’s crawlers are searching for and how they’re testing your site if you want to rank at the top of Google’s pages. Bad sites are kept out of the ranking by the Panda algorithm update, while successful sites are kept in.

Panda was first introduced as a filter for search engine results, but it was later added to the core algorithm in January 2016.

Penguin

Google’s “webspam algorithm update” was released in 2012, and it targeted connection spam and malicious link building activities.

Penguin’s main aim is to find and penalize websites that use spammy or irrelevant links.

When websites use connect schemes to improve their rankings, Google is very aware of it. Penguin can detect whether a site is purchasing links or obtaining them through networks designed to improve Google rankings.

Pirate Update

Google’s Pirate Update was created to prevent sites from ranking well in Google search after receiving several copyright infringement complaints. The majority of sites affected, especially torrent sites, are relatively large and well-known websites that made pirated content (such as movies, music, or books) accessible to visitors for free.

Although August 2012 wasn’t the first time Google enacted copyright legislation, it was a watershed moment to search for and punish pirated content websites.

Hummingbird

Since the fall of 2013, Google’s Hummingbird algorithm has left its mark on billions of search results, allowing users to take another small step toward a more private, personalized search engine results page.

Google’s Hummingbird algorithm aids in interpreting search queries and the delivery of results relevant to the searcher’s purpose (as opposed to the individual terms within the query). Although keywords remain relevant, the Hummingbird algorithm allows a page to rank for a query even if it does not contain the exact words entered by the searcher.

Pigeon

The Pigeon Update was published on July 24, 2014, to align the local algorithms with the core algorithm. The aim of this update was to give better SERP exposure to local businesses that have a strong organic presence. It was also to provide reliable local results based on conventional web search ranking signals in response to user search queries.

Mobile Update

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update (aka Mobilegeddon) was released on April 21, 2015, to ensure that pages optimized for mobile devices rank at the top of mobile search. In contrast, pages that were not mobile-friendly were de-ranked. The update has had no impact on desktop searches.

RankBrain

Google’s Hummingbird algorithm includes RankBrain. It’s a machine learning system that aids Google in deciphering queries and serving the most relevant search results in response. RankBrain is the third most powerful ranking factor, according to Google.

Medic Update

The “Medic” Core Update was a major core algorithm update that Google performs multiple times a year. Though Google did not specify the reason for the change, it had a significant impact on your life pages’ health, finance, and wealth . According to SEO experts, this Google update improved the ranking of high-quality articles that provide advice on major life issues like finances and health.

Fred

“Fred” is a catch-all term for any quality-related algorithm(s) or update(s) that Google does not otherwise recognize.

BERT

Google’s BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) update was an attempt by the company to understand better how people scan. It’s similar to RankBrain and is meant to supplement rather than replace RankBrain in terms of understanding searches.

Google released the first BERT update in English, followed by updates in over 70 other languages. According to previous estimates, it affected 10% of all search queries.