Update timeline
Google updates: every update to the search algorithm
Timeline, rollout notes and the operational memory of Google updates: Core Updates, Spam Updates and every relevant change in Search.
From 2011 to today
Latest entry 25 June 2026
78
Updates recorded
Each entry starts from Google's official announcement and records its dates, scope and rollout status.
2026
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Spam Update latest release
June 2026 Spam Update
Google has released the June 2026 antispam update, which has been rolled out for all languages and geographic regions. This is a routine update designed to improve the performance of the automated systems that detect spam in search results. -
Core Update
May 2026 Core Update
Google has released the May 2026 Core Update, described as “a routine update designed to better showcase relevant and satisfying content for users searching across all types of sites. -
Spam Update
New Anti-Spam Regulation: Back Button Hijacking
Google has introduced a new anti-spam policy to combat the deceptive practice known as “Back Button Hijacking,” which now constitutes an explicit violation of anti-spam policies, potentially resulting in manual actions and other penalties. Read more -
Core Update
February 2026 Google Discover Core Update
The first core update exclusively for Discover is now live. Google is separating the feed’s ranking from that of Search, prioritizing precise localization and vertical expertise. Read more 2025
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Core Update
December 2025 Core Update
Google's “regular” December 2025 Core Update has been launched, aimed at improving the ability of ranking systems to show more useful and relevant content. Read more -
Core Update
What a shock for SERPs: all the data from Google’s June Core Update
Sixteen days of volatility and changes in the landscape, with an immediate and visible impact. This time, the rollout of Google's June 2025 Core Update did not just cause a slight, almost painless shock, because many saw certainties disappear, with fluctuations affecting major brands, editorial sites, food, sports, and historic portals. And even though, as usual, there were no additional technical communications or operational explanations, the update exposed – once again – how illusory it is to believe that content, links, or technicalities are enough to guarantee a “place in the sun” in SERPs. Read more -
Core Update
June 2025 Core Update
Google has released its second major update of the year. As usual, it aims to improve the quality of search results with substantial changes to its ranking systems, without targeting specific types of content or violations. -
Core Update
March 2025 Core Update
Google has released itse March 2025 Core Update, the first update of the year, to “improve relevance and user satisfaction through high-quality content”. Read more -
Core Update
December 2024 Google Core Update: analytics and winner and loser sites
Celebration or sorrow? If December has always been the month of budgets, this year Google decided to put the load on, unleashing the December 2024 Core Update right on the heels of the holidays and just seven days after the completion of the November 2024 Core Update. This update, moreover, had a very fast rollout (completed in less than a week) and extraordinary impact, moving the SERPs with a power not seen in a long time, which did not allow much room to recover from the “earthquake” of the previous update. Read more 2024
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Spam Update
December 2024 Spam Update
Google has released a new anti-spam update for Search, the December 2024 Spam Update, which applies globally and to all languages. It does not specify exactly what type of spam it targets. -
Core Update
December 2024 Core Update
Somewhat surprisingly, Google has released a new core algorithmic update, the December 2024 Core Update. “We have several core systems that we are always improving,” explained official Google sources. Read more -
Core Update
November 2024 Google Core Update: winners and losers
For a while it even seemed like Google had forgotten about it! In fact, we had to wait a full 24 days for confirmation of the completion of the release of the November 2024 Core Update, the third major algorithmic update of the year, which officially ended on December 5 and had the classic variable, moderate to significant, impacts in several areas. As we mentioned in our presentation, this latest update follows in the wake of previous 2024 interventions, expanding the work on quality and reliability, already the focus of the changes introduced by the March and August updates. Read more -
Other updates
Removal of sitelink search box
Google has removed the sitelink search box, deeming it now of little use to users. Introduced in 2014, it allowed internal searches directly from the SERP, but declining usage led to its deprecation. The report in Search Console and related markup were also removed accordingly. -
Spam Update
Site reputation abuse: Google’s anti-spam rule
It is the latest chapter in Google's fight against spam and attempts to manipulate SERPs with abusive and manipulative practices. Site reputation abuse, in Italian “site reputation abuse,” is the policy by which the search engine is trying to curb practices known as parasite SEO, by which external content hosted on authoritative sites exploits their established reputation to gain positions in SERPs without offering real value to users. So let's try to understand what is going on, why Google decided to intervene so quickly, and which sites were affected. Read more -
Spam Update
Site Reputation Abuse Update
Google intensifies the rules of site reputation abuse, a practice in which third-party content exploits a host site's ranking signals to manipulate SERPs. It is now explicitly prohibited to publish such content, even with the direct involvement of the site owner. In addition, Google has updated its systems to evaluate sections of sites independently, preventing sub-sections from gaining unwarranted advantage from the domain's overall reputation. Read more -
Core Update
November 2024 Core Update
Google has released a new algorithmic core update, the November 2024 core update: as usual, it aims to improve the quality of results and the identification of useful content, proposing to reduce the appearance of content that seems to be created just to get good results in Search. -
Other updates
Removal of Google cache link
Google has removed the cache link from search results, removing public access to archived versions of web pages. The feature is being replaced by a partnership with Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine. Read more -
Core Update
Google August 2024 Core Update: winners and losers
“Oops, Google did it again,” we might say paraphrasing Britney Spears. Once again this year, as is now “tradition,” the Search giant launched an algorithmic update in the middle of August, which disturbed or at least threatened the vacation season of SEOs and webmasters. In fact, the impact of this August 2024 Core Update does not seem to have been that violent, nor do the claims of Google, which had spoken of an intervention launched (also) to help sites that had lost rankings and traffic with previous updates, appear confirmed. Read more -
Other updates
Google updates: what they are and how to recover lost rankings
They are among the most anticipated, feared and discussed events in the world of digital marketing and SEO: Google Core Updates, Google's updates, are significant and far-reaching changes that intervene in Google's search algorithms and systems, released periodically throughout the year and usually announced officially so that site owners, content producers and SEOs have the right information to understand any changes that are noticed in terms of ranking and traffic. Born out of the need to keep the world's leading search engine on the cutting edge, Google updates introduce changes that can rearrange the game, drastically affecting traffic and page visibility. Read more -
Core Update
August 2024 Core Update
Google has released a new core algorithmic update. August 2024 Core Update is designed to continue the work of improving the quality of search results, showing more content that people actually find useful and less content that seems to be created just to get good results in Search. -
Spam Update
June 2024 spam update
Google released the June 2024 Spam update, periodic intervention by system to make spam detection and elimination of new types of spam in Search more effective. -
Ranking systems
INP in Core Web Vitals
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is the official metric for measuring responsiveness in Core Web Vitals, taking the place of FID (First Input Delay). Compared to FID, INP looks at all interactions with the page and measures overall latency, providing a more complete picture of performance in terms of interactivity and responsiveness to users. Read more -
Spam Update
March 2024 spam update
Google has released the March 2024 spam update, focusing on combating spam in search results. Specifically, it introduces three new cases of violations recognized by Google's systems: illicit use of expired domains, large-scale content, and site reputation. Read more -
Core Update
March 2024 core update
Google has released a new core algorithmic update, the first in 2024. The March 2024 core update aims to improve the quality of results and identification of useful content by reducing the presence of unoriginal content in SERPs. Read more 2023
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Ranking systems
November 2023 Reviews Update
Google has released a new update for the Reviews system, the algorithmic system that focuses on analyzing the quality of review content. This is the latest periodic notification about such improvements, which will continue to occur "at a regular and ongoing pace," as stated by Google. Read more -
Core Update
November 2023 Core Update
Google has released (another) major update, the November 2023 Core Update, which as usual serves to improve the overall quality and relevance of the results shown. -
Core Update
October 2023 Core Update
Google has released a new major update to its algorithms, the October 2023 Core Update, which impacts the search engine globally. Read more -
Spam Update
October 2023 Spam Update
Google has released the October 2023 anti-spam update, which improves Google's coverage of many languages and types of spam, in the wake of feedback received from users in various countries (particularly in Asia). Read more -
Ranking systems
Helpful Content System Update
Google has released a global update for Helpful Content System, which serves to improve the classifier that brings out useful content for people in SERPs. Read more -
Core Update
August 2023 Google Core Update
Google has released a new core algorithmic update, called the August 2023 Core Update, which takes global action on the search engine. Read more -
Ranking systems
April 2023 Google Reviews Update
Google has released an update to the Reviews system, which now affects not only reviews of products, but also reviews of services and things. Read more -
Core Update
March 2023 Google Core Update
Google has released the new algorithmic update globally, called the March 2023 Core Update. Read more -
Ranking systems
Product Reviews System: update and international launch
Google's Product Reviews System, automatic ranking systems at work on product reviews, gets a new update and is officially launched for other versions of Google. Read more 2022
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Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
Google changes its guidelines for search quality raters and adds Experience among the key dimensions to search for on pages: E-E-A-T is now born, i.e. experience, expertise, authoritativeness e trustworthiness. Read more -
Spam Update
December 2022 link spam update
Google released the December 2022 link spam update to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on search results thanks to SpamBrain: now this AI-based spam prevention system directly detects spam and also identifies sites that purchase links and sites used for the purpose of transmitting outbound links. -
Ranking systems
Helpful Content System all around the world
Google has officially released its Helpful Content System worldwide, including Europe: the usefulness of content is a ranking factor. Read more -
Ranking systems
New Google terminology: System and Update
This is not technical news, but it is useful to point out that Google now uses two different terms to refer to algorithm interventions: System is a ranking algorithm, constantly running in the background. Update is a one-time change to ranking systems. For now, we will not change the designations already present on the blog, to avoid confusion. Read more -
Spam Update
October 2022 Google Spam Update
Google has released an update, global and for all languages, affecting the automated systems that detect spam in search results, to make them more effective in detecting spam, including new types. Read more -
Ranking systems
September 2022 Google Product Reviews Update
Fifth update for the Product Reviews Update, the Google Search ranking algorithm update focused on content related to product reviews on the Web, still limited to searches in English. Read more -
Core Update
September 2022 Google Core Update
On September 12, Google released the September 2022 Core Update, an update to the search engine's core algorithm. Read more -
Ranking systems
Helpful Content System
Google has released the Helpful Content System for English-language searches: a new site-level ranking signal that rewards content that are useful to people and demotes content only written to gain search engine visibility. Read more -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
Google modifies the Guidelines for Search Quality Evaluators by introducing new definitions for some key SEO topics, such as page quality, YMYL topics, and weight of EAT criteria in evaluations. Read more -
Ranking systems
July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update
Google has launched a new update, the fourth, for its Product Reviews, the complex algorithm that evaluates the quality of pages with product reviews, still limited to English-language content.. Read more -
Core Update
May 2022 Google Core Update
New Google algorithm core update: On May 25 debuted the May 2022 Core Update, which will complete its rollout within two weeks.. Read more -
Ranking systems
March 2022 Google Product Reviews Update
Google has announced a new update for Product Reviews, the system for rating and ranking pages with product reviews on U.S. SERPs in English. Read more 2021
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Ranking systems
December 2021 Google Product Reviews Update
Google has announced changes to the Product Reviews Update, the algorithm that seeks to improve the results provided by the search engine for content related to "product reviews". Read more -
Core Update
November 2021 Google Core Update
Google's November 2021 Core Update, a new basic update to the search engine's algorithms, has started. Read more -
Spam Update
November 2021 Spam Update
New Google crackdown on spam results in SERPs, to clean up pages from results that Google's algorithms detect as spammy and unhelpful. Read more -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
Google has updated the document for quality raters by, among other things, bringing more details on the YMYL content category and clarification on what low quality pages mean. Read more -
Ranking systems
Update to the way title tags are generated
Google has made some changes to the algorithm that handles HTML title tags, the clickable titles of pages ranked in its SERPs. Read more -
Ranking systems
Google changes its Page Experience signals
Google changes the signals used for Page Experience, removing safe navigation, which then no longer serves as a ranking factor. Read more -
Spam Update
Google Link Spam Update
Google launches the Link Spam Update, an algorithmic update that will enable the search engine to identify and undo link spam more effectively and broadly. Read more -
Core Update
Google July 2021 Broad Core Update
Google has kicked off the roll out of the July 2021 core update, the second part of the major algorithmic update that began last month. Read more -
Spam Update
Google Spam update
Google has released two anti-spam updates (June 23 and 28) that are part of its regular work to improve search results and seek, among other things, to reduce the toxic phenomenon of online slender and limit the emergence of content harmful to people's reputations. Read more -
Ranking systems
Google Page Experience Update
Google officially launches the Page Experience Update, an algorithmic update by which it introduces as a ranking factor a series of technical elements that evaluate the performance of site pages with respect to the experience provided to users. Read more -
Core Update
Google June 2021 Core Update
The June 2021 Core Update, the periodic update of the search engine's core algorithms, started today. Read more -
Ranking systems
Google MUM for Search
It has been announced MUM, a powerful search algorithm used by Search that represents "a new Artificial Intelligence milestone" for understanding information. Read more -
Ranking systems
April 2021 Google Product Reviews Update
Google launches the Product Reviews Update, an algorithmic update that improves the rating of web pages that publish product reviews. Read more 2020
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Core Update
Google December 2020 Core Update
Google's December 2020 Core Update, a new update to the core algorithm committed to the search system, has kicked off. Read more -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
New update for Google's quality raters guidelines, the document with guidance Google provides to its SERP quality raters. Read more -
Core Update
Google May 2020 Core Update
The May 2020 Core Update, Google's new algorithmic update for the Search system, has started. Read more -
Core Update
Google January 2020 Core Update
A new global algorithm update, Google's January 2020 Core Update, is starting. Read more 2019
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Ranking systems
Google BERT in 70 more Languages
Google BERT has been officially released for query language interpretation in more than 70 languages around the world. Read more -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
The new updated guidelines for quality raters focus on the importance of providing objective and unbiased assessments. Read more -
Ranking systems
Google BERT for Search
Announced Google BERT, new algorithm for Search using machine learning and language comprehension studies. Read more -
Core Update
Google September 2019 Core Update
It has started the new global search engine algorithm update, Google September 2019 Core Update. -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
Google has updated its guidelines for quality raters, which now include an even more specific focus on YMYL content. -
Core Update
Google June 2019 Core Update
Google launches a new Search core algorithm update, the June 2019 Core Update. -
Policies and guidelines
Search Quality Raters Guidelines Update
Google has updated the Search Quality Rating Program's General Guidelines, the guidelines that govern the Search Quality Rating Program on Google and guide the work of quality raters. -
Core Update
Google March 2019 Core Update
Big new Google algorithm update: March 2019 Core Update kicks off. 2018
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Core Update
Google August 2018 Core Update
Google releases a broad core update that the community dubs Medic or E-A-T update: the most visible effects concern health and YMYL sites, but the scope is broader and more general. Read more -
Ranking systems
Mobile Speed Update
Speed becomes ranking factor even from mobile: Google's Speed update kicks off. -
Core Update
Google April 2018 Core Update
Google's new broad core update, confirmed a few days after its release: it follows the same logic as the March update, with a general review of the relevance of search results. -
Ranking systems
Google Mobile-first Index
Google has officially started the roll-out of its mobile-first index: for the first time, indexing is based on the mobile version of pages. Read more -
Core Update
Google March 2018 Core Update
Google releases a broad core update, confirmed on March 9: no targeted action against individual sites, but a reassessment of content that rewards previously underrated pages. 2017
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Ranking systems
Google RankBrain
Google has made RankBrain official, a machine learning technology that supports the activities of the ranking algorithm and helps the ranking of web pages. -
Ranking systems
Fred Update
Google released a quality update to improve the relevance of search results, jokingly dubbed "Fred," which resulted in the downgrading of many sites with unhelpful, thin or copied content. 2011
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Ranking systems
Google Panda
Finally starts Google Panda, an algorithmic update geared toward bringing out "more high-quality sites in Search".
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