Google updates: algorithm changes through 2026

● May 21, 2026: Core Update

The second core update of 2026 will take two weeks to roll out.

● May 20, 2026: Google I/O

At its yearly presentation of everything new, Google introduced the “new, intelligent search box”. Thanks to AI, it lets you interact with text, images, videos, files, browser tabs and more.

● March 27, 2026: Core Update

Barely 3 days after the first Spam Update of 2026 came the first Core Update. It caused big shifts. According to data from SEO tool SE Ranking, almost 80% of the top threes changed, while 1 in 4 pages in the top 10 dropped out of the top 100. Websites with little unique content of their own took the hardest hits. Google puts even more weight on a strong brand, its own data and value for users.

● March 24, 2026: Spam Update

By far the fastest Spam Update rollout ever. It was done in less than 20 hours. The effects are hard to measure, but it mainly seems to have amplified the impact of the March Core Update.

● February 5, 2026: Discover Update

A change to the systems that rank news articles. The goal is to show more locally relevant content and less clickbait. Rolled out in the United States first, with the rest of the world following in the coming months.

● December 11, 2025: Core Update

The classic year-end update. We saw big shifts especially on December 13 and 20, in sectors such as YMYL (Your Money Your Life: finance and health) and e-commerce. The rollout officially ended on December 29. This December 2025 Core Update once again coincides with the holidays, so keep that impact in mind too when you look at rises and drops in search volume.

● August 26, 2025: Spam Update

Google keeps using AI to filter spammy links out of the search results. According to Google, it's “a normal Spam Update” (a good six months after the previous one), with a global rollout that takes a few weeks.

● June 30, 2025: Core Update

Google keeps focusing hard on answering its users' search intent. AI Overviews become even more important. There are plenty of changes under the hood. So far, they don't seem to translate into major upheavals in the search results.

● March 13, 2025: Core Update

According to Google, the first official Core Update of 2025 is “a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites”. Forums and AI-generated pages seem to be among the victims. For our clients, we mostly see further gains.

● January 2025: unconfirmed update

In the second half of January, we saw Google make a number of corrections to the search results.

● December 2024: Core & Spam Update

Right before the end of the year, Google pushed through two more updates. The December 2024 Core Update needed barely six days, from December 12 to 18, to make corrections to the November Core Update. Just a day later, a new Spam Update followed. It's getting harder to tell what Google is aiming for, but a lot is moving in the SERPs.

● November 11, 2024: Core Update

No ceasefire for Google this year. After more than a month of big changes in the search results, the search engine confirmed that a new major update was underway. The update itself went fairly quietly, but at the same time Google handed out manual penalties to subdomains of mostly large English-language websites that sell products and ride on the parent site's authority to rank high. The Big G has been fighting this kind of parasite SEO for a while now.

● August 15, 2024: Core Update

After plenty of (negative) feedback from smaller websites that had disappeared from the search results after the September 2023 Helpful Content Update, Google rolled out an update meant to give helpful content from independent websites more visibility. There were quite a few shifts, but not everyone who got hit in September came out better. The rollout of the August 2024 Core Update ended on September 3, 2024.

● June 20, 2024: Spam Update

A spam update Google shared no further information about. The rollout took 7 days, but the update seems to have had little effect on the search results. It was, however, the first announced adjustment after the huge March 2024 Core Update.

● March 5, 2024: Core Update

It doesn't have a sexy name like Panda or Penguin, but the March 2024 Core Update is the biggest one Google has rolled out in 12 years. In 1.5 months, the search engine says it cleared 45% of low-quality content out of the search results. From now on, helpful content updates are part of the core updates.

● March 5, 2024: Spam Update

Alongside a core update, Google launched a spam update aimed at parasite SEO, among other things. With 2 updates and manual actions happening at the same time, it's hard to pin down what caused changes in the search results. SERP volatility was very high during those 1.5 months, though.

● November 2: Core Update

A second core update in barely two months. Google is fighting AI content even harder. SERP volatility is even higher with this November 2023 Core Update than with the previous one.

● October 5, 2023: Core Update

The third core update this year. This Google October 2023 Core Update came with little information and lots of SERP volatility.

● October 4, 2023: Spam update

This spam update mainly targeted content in languages other than English.

● September 14, 2023: Helpful content system update

Another revision of the helpful content guidelines, with updates on AI-written text, changing dates and third-party content.

● August 22, 2023: Core Update

Rolled out until September 7 and announced as a major update. Because the algorithm kept changing before and after the update, though, it's hard to tell how much effect it really had.

● May 23, 2023: Topic authority system

This system has been in use for several years, but now gets an explanation for the first time. Relevant content from experts and specialists is shown higher in Google Search and Google News.

● April 12, 2023: Reviews update

Goodbye ‘product reviews’, hello ‘reviews’. From now on, users can also review things like travel destinations, businesses and media.

● March 15, 2023: Core Update

Google itself reveals nothing about this update, which caused considerable shifts in a lot of search results.

● February 21, 2023: Product reviews update

This update follows the previous one from September 2022. Where the previous one was still an update to the product reviews themselves, the new one is an update to the product review system.

● December 14, 2022: Link spam update

Spam updates are really there to improve the AI spam system. Link spam updates remove spammy links. Does Google remove spammy links on your website? Then the ranking benefits those links brought you are gone too. The update has a global impact on all websites in all languages.

● December 5, 2022: Helpful content update

This update follows the previous helpful content update from August 2022. It's meant to improve the classification of helpful content. The update affects websites in all languages worldwide.

● October 19, 2022: Spam Update

Spam updates are really there to improve the AI spam system. Seeing fluctuations after this update? Then it's worth checking Google's spam policies. Sites that don't follow those policies may rank lower or not show up in the results at all.

● September 20, 2022: Product Review Algorithm Update

Another update to the product review algorithm. Not doing product reviews on your site? Then there's nothing to worry about.

● September 12, 2022: Core Update

A Core Update is never aimed at a specific website. So if you see fluctuations after one, you haven't been hit with a penalty. Core updates aim to improve the systems that assess a website's overall content. You may see some fluctuations.

● August 27, 2022: Helpful Content Update (HCU)

The update was first rolled out for English-language websites. The update for other languages follows later. This update rewards user-focused content. For the search engine, it matters that you have something useful to tell your users. Always stay within the theme of your website, too. This update affects all search results. At the same time, Google is also looking for unhelpful content. But as long as you offer your users useful content, you're fine.

● June 27, 2022: Product Reviews Update

This update follows up on the March 2021 Product Reviews Update. Google rewards reviews that go in depth and contain unique content. The search engine wants to see proof behind your review. The update doesn't affect all search results. It only has an impact on actual review websites.

● May 22, 2022: May 2022 Core Update

Core updates always bring plenty of position changes. Although we saw little negative impact on our own websites and those of our clients, colleagues saw bigger fluctuations. Websites using AI content in particular saw a big drop in traffic.

● February 22, 2022: Product update

This update has little impact on most websites. Google tinkered with the algorithm that ranks product reviews.

● February 22, 2022: Page experience update

A small update that extends the speed factors already in place for mobile devices to desktop rankings.

● November 30: November 2021 Core Update

Between November 17 and 30, Google rolled out the November 2021 Core Update. The update brought plenty of fluctuations in the search results.

● August 24: Page title update

On August 24, Google announced the Page Title Update. With this new system, Google can generate titles for web pages. The focus is more on what the page is about. So the title isn't tailored specifically to the user's search query.
In more than 80% of cases, Google uses the page's title tag to generate a title. So investing in a good HTML title tag is still hugely important.
No major shifts have been noticed yet, but different titles did start showing up in the search results.

● June 15: Page experience update

On June 15, Google announced on Twitter that the Page Experience update was now gradually rolling out. It was supposed to be fully rolled out by the end of August 2021. In the end it took a little longer, and the update was fully rolled out in early September. As with most updates that run over a longer period, we saw no drastic changes in the search results. This update added Core Web Vitals to the Google algorithm.

● February 19: Featured snippet drop

Since February 19, we've seen a sharp drop in the number of featured snippets. In hindsight this was only temporary, as if the featured snippets had gone on vacation for a bit. By mid-March, this ‘problem’ seemed solved. Whether it was a bug or a deliberate change still isn't clear.

● February 10: Passage indexing (US/English)

With this update, Google pays more attention to “passages” in content. Google doesn't just show pages, but also parts of them. The right answer to a complex search query might be hidden deep in one part of the text. Now Google can find that part more easily. The name passage indexing was later reconsidered. The update is now called ‘passage ranking’. The update was expected to affect 7% of all search queries.

● December 3: Core update

In December, Google rolled out a core update.

● October 12: Indexing bug, no. 2

Google confirmed that most of the indexing bugs had been fixed.

● September 29: Indexing bug, no. 1

Google confirmed an indexing bug.

● August 15: Unknown update

There were lots of changes again, but no announced or confirmed update. It looked like the changes had disappeared again the next day.

● August 10: Google Glitch

This ‘big’ update turned out to be a bug.

● June 23: Core rollback update

Some of the changes from the May 4 update were rolled back.

● June 22: Google bug fix

Lots of shifts were noticed, which turned out to be caused by a bug. The bug was fixed quickly.

● May 4: Core update

This core update affected duplicate content, websites with lots of unnecessary content, and internal keyword cannibalization.

● February 7: Unknown update

Once again, changes were visible, but no update was announced or confirmed.

● January 22: Featured snippet change

Search results that have a featured snippet and also rank on the first page with their regular result will have that regular result moved to position 11. Noticeably fewer results come with a featured snippet, and many search results no longer show one at all.

● January 13: Core update

A core update was announced. It rolled out in the US first, and across the rest of the world over the following two weeks.

● December 9: BERT international rollout

After BERT was introduced in the United States in October, the update has been live worldwide since December 9.

● October 22: BERT update

The BERT update is about the way Google understands the text on a website. Thanks to this update, featured snippets can be shown better and give more relevant answers. The update affects all top 10 results. Quality content that answers the user's questions gets rewarded.

● September 24: Broad core algorithm update

This update affected link quality. Bought backlinks are penalized, unique content is rewarded, and news and medical websites take back their place in the SERP.

● September 18: Rich snippet review update

Reviews are no longer shown in the search results.

● August 1: New algorithm for understanding information

Google launched a new algorithm. Old, useless information was filtered out from new, useful information. So from now on, content is up to date and useful.

● July 12: Maverick update

Google didn't confirm the Maverick update. SEO marketers did notice shifts in the results, though.

● June 6: Site diversity update

This update brings more variety to the first page. A website is now shown at most 2 times in the SERP. It had no effect on images, Google Maps and Featured Snippets.

● June 3: Core update

Websites with quality content saw their rankings rise. Websites with annoying banners, a poor user experience and low-quality content were hit.

● March 12: Florida 2 (core update)

This core update doesn't target specific websites or sectors. It looks like Google now interprets search queries differently, which in turn does affect your ranking.

● March 1: 19 SERP results

All sorts of changes were spotted that day. If you counted the organic results, there turned out to be 19 on the first page of search results. People thought it was a test, but that was never confirmed.

● November 29: Unknown update

At the end of November, a few more changes were noticed.

● November 22: Thanksgiving update

It was mostly SEO marketers who saw their positions change again after this update. The update wasn't confirmed, but the suspicion is that the Medic update was refined or rolled back.

● August 1: Medic update

This update was meant to refine the search results. Health and medical websites in particular saw ranking changes, which is why it was called the ‘Medic update’.

● July 24: Chrome security warning (full site)

From now on, all websites that don't use an HTTPS connection are marked as not secure.

● July 9: Mobile speed update

Mobile page load time now also counts as a ranking factor.

● April 17: Broad core algorithm quality update

Pages with quality content rose in the rankings.

● March 26: Mobile-first index rollout

With this update, the mobile version of a website is also used for indexing and ranking. That's how Google wants to help mobile users find what they're looking for faster.

● March 14: Zero-result SERP test

For a week, Google ran a test where no organic search results were shown. During this test, a “show all results” button also appeared.

● March 8: Brackets core update

This update makes search results more relevant. It was a core update.

● February 20: Unknown update

A number of changes were noticed, but no update was announced or confirmed.

● January 17: Slow mobile pages demoted

Slow mobile pages got a lower ranking in the search results.

● December 14: Maccabees update

This update mainly affected e-commerce. There was no official announcement, but it didn't go unnoticed.

● November 30: Longer snippets

The maximum length of the description went up from 155 to 300 characters.

● October 17: Google Chrome HTTPS warnings

This wasn't a real update. From now on, Google Chrome shows a warning on forms that aren't secure.

● September 27: Unknown update

Changes were reported, but no update has been confirmed.

● June 20: Google Jobs

With the launch of Google Jobs, job openings also started showing up in the search results.

● May 17: Unknown update

Changes were reported, but no update has been confirmed.

● April 16: 50% HTTPS in the search results

Half of the top search results were secure websites. By the end of the year, that was already 75%.

● March 8: Fred update

With this update, Google went after poor content. Quality content was rewarded.

● February 1 & 6: Unknown major update

Google ran 2 major updates in one week, but didn't confirm them.

● January 10: Pop-up penalty

Websites that showed aggressive pop-ups got a penalty.

● November 10: Unknown major update

No updates were confirmed, but big shifts in the search results were reported.

● October 6: Penguin phase 2

Penalties from earlier Penguin updates were now reversed.

● September 27: Penguin phase 1

This phase of the Penguin update is part of the real-time update.

● September 23: Penguin 4.0 real-time

With the Penguin 4.0 real-time update, sites are penalized for bad links in real time (immediately), and they can recover faster from a penalty once they change or remove the bad link.

● September 13: Image/Universal drop

The search results shifted again. Organic results were shown on the first page. Google didn't confirm this update either.

● September 1: Possum update

There were shifts in the top 3 search results, spam was removed and location became more important. Still, Google didn't confirm the update.

● May 12: Mobile-friendly 2.0

Mobile-friendly websites got a boost in the search results.

● May 10: Unknown major update

An update was rolled out. What exactly changed isn't clear.

● February 23: Google AdWords update

The sidebar was removed and a fourth block was added at the top. Even though this was an update for paid ads, it also affected competitive organic keywords.

● January 8: Unknown update/Ghost update

A few shifts were noticed, but no big changes. Google ran a core update of the algorithm.

● October 26: RankBrain algorithm update

Google announced that machine learning had been part of the updates rolled out over the past year. With the help of artificial intelligence, the algorithm trains itself to recognize patterns.

● July 17: Panda 4.2

According to Google, this Panda update would take months. The impact is unclear, and there were no clear signs of an algorithm update.

● May 3: quality update

Google confirmed this update, which was dubbed ‘Phantom 2’. It was rolled out without any prior announcement. According to Google, it was a quality update.

● April 22: Mobilegeddon (mobile update)

This is where the preference for mobile-friendly websites started. There were big shifts in the mobile search results. A responsive design now became important.

● February 4: Unknown update

Shifts were reported, but Google didn't confirm an update.

● December 22: Pigeon expands to the UK, CA, AU.

The Pigeon update was rolled out in other countries too.

● December 10: Penguin Everflux (ongoing update)

Google announced that Penguin would get regular small updates instead of an occasional big one.

● November 28: Penguin 3.1

A small Penguin update.

● October 21: Pirate 2.0

A small group of websites saw big ranking shifts from this update, which targeted so-called ‘piracy’.

● October 17: Penguin 3.0

This Penguin update was less drastic than expected and didn't have major consequences.

● October 1: “In the news” box

The number of potential news websites was expanded. News sites reported a difference in visitor numbers, and there were visible shifts in the search results.

● September 23: Panda 4.1

Around 3% to 5% of search queries were affected by this big Panda update.

● August 28: authorship removed

Google drops authorship altogether. The next day, it had completely disappeared from the SERP.

● August 6: HTTPS/SSL update

Google said it preferred secure websites. These secure websites got a small ranking boost.

● July 24: Pigeon update

The Pigeon update brought big changes to local search results. Local searches became more accurate and relevant.

● June 28: authorship photo drop

Google stops showing authorship photos in the SERP.

● June 16: Google Spam algorithm version 3.0

This was a repeat of the previous anti-spam update.

● May 21: Google anti-spam update and Panda 4.0

This update targeted so-called ‘spammy queries’. Those are searches with keywords like ‘casino’, where you often get links that download malware onto your computer. These websites had often been hacked. Panda also got a big update that affected no less than 7.5% of English-language search queries.

● April 14: Unknown update

Google didn't confirm an update, but lots of changes in the algorithm were noticed. Several websites saw a difference in ranking.

● February 6: Page layout #3

The algorithm gets an update that looks more closely at the page layout and how much content is visible once you've clicked on the result. The goal is to fight an overload of ads at the top of pages. The update affected less than 1% of search queries.

● December 19: Author snippets change

With this update, authorship disappeared from the snippets.

● December 17: Unknown update

Lots of shifts in the search results were reported that day, but Google didn't confirm an update.

● November 14: Unknown update

Several shifts in the search results were noticed, but Google didn't confirm the update.

● October 4: Penguin 2.1

Google added spam filtering.

● August 20: Hummingbird update

With the Hummingbird update, Google interprets text and search queries better.

● August 6: in-depth article update

A new type of content was introduced, meant for long articles that cover a complete topic.

● July 26: Unknown update

An update in which “big gaps” in the search results were tracked down.

● July 19: Knowledge graph expansion

This update grew the number of knowledge graphs by 25%.

● July 18: Panda recovery update

A Panda update that rolled out over a period of 10 days.

● June 27: Multi-week update

This update was announced after a site reached position 2 in the SERP by using techniques that weren't allowed.

● June 11: Panda Dance update and payday loan/spam query update

Panda updates were set to roll out over a period of 10 days. This continued over the following months, but without announcements. The algorithm was also updated to better target search queries that often get spammed.

● May 22: Penguin 2.0

This big Penguin update affected 2.3% of all English-language search queries.

● May 21: domain crowding/diversity

From now on, you'll see multiple results from the same domain in your search results less often.

● May 9: Unknown update

Lots of algorithm activity was reported, but Google didn't confirm an update.

● March 14: Panda #25

Data suggests a Panda update took place around this date. Google hasn't confirmed this update.

● January 22: Panda #24

A Panda update that affected 1.2% of search results.

● December 21: Panda #23

A Panda update that affected 1.3% of search results.

● December 4: Knowledge graph expansion

The knowledge graph feature became available for non-English search results, such as Spanish and French.

● November 21: Panda #22

A small Panda update that affected barely 0.8% of search results.

● November 5: Panda #21

A Panda update that affected 1.1% of search results.

● October 9: Page layout #2

An update for page layout. Mainly sites with lots of ads were hit.

● October 5: Penguin #3

A small Penguin update that affected barely 0.3% of search results.

● October 4

Google posted that 65 updates had been rolled out in August and September.

● September 27: Exact-match domain and Panda #20 update

An exact-match domain is a domain name that's exactly the same as a search query, which gives it a ranking boost. An algorithm update was rolled out to counter that boost. There was also a Panda update that affected 2.4% of search results.

● September 18: Panda 3.9.2

A small Panda update.

● August 20: Panda 3.9.1

A small Panda update.

● August 14: 7-result SERPs

For about 18% of search results, only 7 results were shown on the SERP.

● August 10: The Pirate DMCA penalty

Google started handing out penalties to websites accused of copyright infringement.
It also confirmed 86 updates in June and July.

● July 24: Panda 3.9

A small Panda update that affected about 1% of search queries.

● June 25: Panda 3.8

A small Panda update.

● June 8: Panda 3.7

A small Panda update that affected less than 1% of search queries.

● June 7

In a blog post, Google confirmed 39 updates in May.

● May 25: Penguin 1.1

A small Penguin update.

● May 16: Knowledge graph

The knowledge graph made it easier and faster for users to find new information. The graph distinguishes between people, places and things. Search results also got summaries, so you could see faster what a website is about.

● May 4

Google published a blog post saying 52 updates had taken place in April.

● April 27: Panda 3.6

A small Panda update.

● April 24: Penguin update

The Penguin update is Google's next big update. The spam factors were adjusted, and from then on factors like keyword stuffing counted for more. This update affected about 3% of English search queries. For queries in languages with more spam, such as Polish, the impact went up to around 5%.

● April 19: Panda 3.5

A small Panda update.

● April 16: Parked domain bug

A bug caused a drop in rankings.

● April 3

Google reported that 50 updates had taken place.

● March 23: Panda 3.4

A Panda update that affected 1.6% of search results.

● February 27: Panda 3.3 and the Venice update

Panda 3.3 was another small update. With the Venice update, search queries were localized based on the user's IP address. That made the results more relevant. Google also published a blog post saying another 40 updates had been rolled out in February.

● February 3

It was announced that 17 updates had taken place in January.

● January 19: Page layout update

This update changed the way websites were assessed.

● January 18: Panda 3.2

A small Panda update.

● January 10: Search + your world

Based on what you shared with and on your Google+ account, you'll now see more relevant search results.

● January 5

Google publishes a blog post saying it rolled out 30 updates.

● December 1

Google publishes a blog post saying 10 updates took place in December.

● November 18: Panda 3.1

A small Panda update.

● November 14

Google publishes a blog post saying 10 updates took place in November.

● November 3: Fresher result update

With this algorithm change, Google wanted to show more current results, mainly for time-sensitive search queries.

● October 18: Query encryption

Google started encrypting search queries. That made it harder to see where organic traffic came from.

● October 5: Panda Flux

This update affected 2% of search results.

● September 28: Panda 2.5

A small Panda update.

● September 15: Pagination elements

To counter crawling and indexing problems, Google introduces the rel=next and rel=prev tags.

● August 16: Expanded sitelinks

You can now have 12 sitelinks under your listing. Later, that went back down to 6.

● August 12: Panda 2.4

This Panda update rolls out internationally and affected around 6 to 9 percent of search queries.

● July 23: Panda 2.3

A small Panda update.

● June 28: Google+

Google+ is Google's social network. It was supposed to take on Facebook.

● June 21: Panda 2.2

A small Panda update.

● June 2: Schema.org

The start of structured data. Google, Yahoo and Bing launched schema.org together. You can think of the website itself as a dictionary for structured data.

● May 9: Panda 2.1

A small Panda update.

● April 11: Panda 2.0

The first international Panda update.

● March 30: the +1 button

This like button was supposed to bring trusted content to the top.

● February 23: Panda update

The Panda update is a big update and the first of its kind. It affected 10 to 12 percent of search results. With the Panda update, quality became even more important than before. From now on, sites with quality content get a higher ranking.
Content farms, sites with low-quality content and sites with a huge number of landing pages were the main targets.

● January 28: Attribution update

This update targeted sites with lots of duplicate content. Stealing content is heavily penalized, and this affected about 2% of search queries.

● January 1: Overstock.com and JCPenney penalty

Google gave a penalty to overstock.com, which picked up extra links by handing out discounts to students. JCPenney got a penalty too, after it turned out an extreme number of unrelated links pointed to its pages. Google made these penalties public.

● December 1: Social signals and negative reviews

Social media like Facebook and Twitter are now also used to determine rankings. An update was also launched so that links from negative reviews no longer helped a website get a higher position. Only positive, quality links do that.

● November 1: Instant visual previews

You got an instant preview of the website in the search results. This feature was quickly removed again.

● September 1: Google Instant

Google now shows possible results before you've even finished typing your search.

● August 1: Brand update

This update let domains or brands appear multiple times on the SERP.

● June 1: Caffeine update rollout

The Caffeine update finally launched. It lets Google analyze and index everything on the web faster. Changes to your website get noticed sooner, and search results are more relevant than ever.

● May 1: May Day update

Long-tail searches are affected by this May Day update. Many webmasters saw a drop in long-tail traffic. Pages with meaningless content were tracked down faster, and quality content became even more important. This update is seen as the forerunner of the 2011 Panda update.

● April 1: Google Places

Google's Local Business Center now becomes Google Places. New extra features include local advertising and ‘favorite places’.

● December 1: Real-time search

Real-time search became available. It includes things like Twitter feeds and content from Google News.

● August 1: Caffeine update (preview)

Google revealed a preview of its big Caffeine update, which eventually rolled out in June 2010.

● February 1: Vince update and the rel-canonical tag

According to Google, the Vince update wasn't a very big update, but the opposite was true. It had a huge impact. Well-known big brands suddenly performed better on high-traffic keywords. And that without a clear reason: many of them weren't even optimized for SEO. The rel-canonical tag also made its debut. It could be used to solve problems like duplicate URLs, for example.

● August 1: Google Suggest

With Google Suggest, related searches or suggestions appear below the query you're typing at that moment.

● April 1: Dewey update

This update brought a big change in the search results for some web pages. What exactly changed in the algorithm during this update isn't clear.

● June 1: Buffy update

The Buffy update brought a large number of small changes. Which ones exactly hasn't been confirmed.

● May 1: Universal search

With universal search, more than just the organic and paid search results are shown. Results from Google's own vertical search engines now show up too. Think news, videos and images.

● December 1: False Alarm update

Google didn't report an update, but lots of SEO marketers claimed to see changes around this time.

● November 1: Supplemental update

This 2006 supplemental update changed the way pages were filtered.

● December 1: Big Daddy update

This update changed things like canonical tags and redirect tags.

● October 1: Jagger update and Google Local/Maps

The Jagger update targeted low-quality links. Google Maps data was introduced, which had a big impact on SEO when it comes to ‘local’.

● September 1: Gilligan update

The Gilligan update was first seen as a false update. Google claimed no major algorithm update had taken place. It was later confirmed that small changes had indeed been made.

● June 1: Personalized search and XML sitemaps

It was now possible to submit an XML sitemap. That gave you a little influence over indexing and crawling. Personalized search was introduced too.

● May 1: Bourbon update

This update affected duplicate content and non-canonical URLs.

● February 1: Allegra update

There's a lot of uncertainty about this update. What is certain is that many website owners saw a change in their Google rankings.

● January 1: Nofollow update

The nofollow tag made it easier to prevent spam. The quality of outgoing links was now checked. Besides Google, Microsoft and Yahoo also launched this tag. This update also made it possible to remove spam comments on blog posts and unverified links.

August 1: Google IPO

This wasn't an update, but an important moment in Google's history. At that point, Google's market value was over 20 billion.

● February 1: Brandy update

With the Brandy update, using relevant anchor texts became important. Google could also find more synonyms for keywords through latent semantic indexing (LSI).

● January 1: Austin update

This update mainly focused on tackling spam and is an extension of the Florida update.

● November 1: Florida update

SEO is what it is today thanks to the Florida update. From here on, techniques like keyword stuffing were penalized, and the level of your SEO mattered more than ever.

● July 1: Fritz update

Fritz was Esmeralda's successor and was responsible for small daily changes. Indexing also no longer happened daily.

● June 1: Esmeralda update

● September 1: the first documented Google update.

Google Dance and PageRank updates were applied.

Google Images launch

No algorithm changes were recorded this year. Google did launch Google Images, though.

● December: The Google Toolbar

Two years before its first updates, Google launched the Google Toolbar. This was a free plug-in that let users search for information from anywhere on the internet using Google's fast, efficient technology.