Friday, 18 January 2013
Google Algorithm Change History
Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500 – 600
times. While most of these changes are minor, every few months Google
rolls out a “major” algorithmic update that affect search results in
significant ways.
For search marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can
help explain changes in rankings and organic website traffic. Below,
we’ve listed the major algorithmic changes that made the biggest impacts
on search. Understanding these updates can help with search engine
optimization.
2012 Updates
Panda #23 — December 21, 2012
Right before the Christmas
holiday, Google rolled out another Panda update. They officially called
it a "refresh", impacting 1.3% of English queries. This was a slightly
higher impact than Pandas #21 and #22.
Knowledge Graph Expansion — December 4, 2012
Google added Knowledge
Graph functionality to non-English queries, including Spanish, French,
German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and Italian. This update was
"more than just translation" and added enhanced KG capabilities.
Panda #22 — November 21, 2012
After some mixed signals,
Google confirmed the 22nd Panda update, which appears to have been
data-only. This came on the heels of a larger, but unnamed update around
November 19th.
Panda #21 — November 5, 2012
Google rolled out their
21st Panda update, roughly 5-1/2 weeks after Panda #20. This update was
reported to be smaller, officially impacting 1.1% of English queries.
Page Layout #2 — October 9, 2012
Google announced an update
to its original page layout algorithm change back in January, which
targeted pages with too many ads above the fold. It's unclear whether
this was an algorithm change or a Panda-style data refresh.
Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012
After suggesting the next
Penguin update would be major, Google released a minor Penguin data
update, impacting "0.3% of queries". Penguin update numbering was
rebooted, similar to Panda - this was the 3rd Penguin release.
August/September 65-Pack — October 4, 2012
Google published their
monthly (bi-monthly?) list of search highlights. The 65 updates for
August and September included 7-result SERPs, Knowledge Graph expansion,
updates to how "page quality" is calculated, and changes to how local
results are determined.
Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September 27, 2012
Google announced a change
in the way it was handling exact-match domains (EMDs). This led to
large-scale devaluation, reducing the presence of EMDs in the MozCast
data set by over 10%. Official word is that this change impacted 0.6% of
queries (by volume).
Panda #20 — September 27, 2012
Overlapping the EMD
update, a fairly major Panda update (algo + data) rolled out,
officially affecting 2.4% of queries. As the 3.X series was getting odd,
industry sources opted to start naming Panda updates in order (this was
the 20th).
Panda 3.9.2 (#19) — September 18, 2012
Google rolled out another
Panda refresh, which appears to have been data-only. Ranking flux was
moderate but not on par with a large-scale algorithm update.
Panda 3.9.1 (#18) — August 20, 2012
Google rolled out yet
another Panda data update, but the impact seemed to be fairly small.
Since the Panda 3.0 series ran out of numbers at 3.9, the new update was
dubbed 3.9.1.
7-Result SERPs — August 14, 2012
Google made a significant
change to the Top 10, limiting it to 7 results for many queries. Our
research showed that this change rolled out over a couple of days,
finally impacting about 18% of the keywords we tracked.
DMCA Penalty — August 10, 2012
Google announced that they
would start penalizing sites with repeat copyright violations, probably
via DMCA takedown requests. Timing was stated as "starting next week"
(8/13?).
An
update to our search algorithms (Google)
June/July 86-Pack — August 10, 2012
After a summer hiatus, the
June and July Search Quality Highlights were rolled out in one
mega-post. Major updates included Panda data and algorithm refreshes, an
improved rank-ordering function (?), a ranking boost for "trusted
sources", and changes to site clustering.
Panda 3.9 (#17) — July 24, 2012
A month after Panda 3.8,
Google rolled out a new Panda update. Rankings fluctuated for 5-6 days,
although no single day was high enough to stand out. Google claimed ~1%
of queries were impacted.
Link Warnings — July 19, 2012
In a repeat of
March/April, Google sent out a large number of unnatural link warnings
via Google Webmaster Tools. In a complete turn-around, they then
announced that these new warnings may not actually represent a serious
problem.
Panda 3.8 (#16) — June 25, 2012
Google rolled out another
Panda data refresh, but this appeared to be data only (no algorithm
changes) and had a much smaller impact than Panda 3.7.
Panda 3.7 (#15) — June 8, 2012
Google rolled out yet
another Panda data update, claiming that less than 1% of queries were
affect. Ranking fluctuation data suggested that the impact was
substantially higher than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6).
May 39-Pack — June 7, 2012
Google released their
monthly Search Highlights, with 39 updates in May. Major changes
included Penguin improvements, better link-scheme detection, changes to
title/snippet rewriting, and updates to Google News.
Penguin 1.1 (#2) — May 25, 2012
Google rolled out its
first targeted data update after the "Penguin" algorithm update. This
confirmed that Penguin data was being processed outside of the main
search index, much like Panda data.
Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012
In a major step toward
semantic search, Google started rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a
SERP-integrated display providing supplemental object about certain
people, places, and things. Expect to see "knowledge panels" appear on
more and more SERPs over time. Also, Danny Sullivan's favorite Trek is
ST:Voyager?!
April 52-Pack — May 4, 2012
Google published details
of 52 updates in April, including changes that were tied to the
"Penguin" update. Other highlights included a 15% larger "base" index,
improved pagination handling, and a number of updates to sitelinks.
Panda 3.6 (#14) — April 27, 2012
Barely a week after Panda
3.5, Google rolled out yet another Panda data update. The implications
of this update were unclear, and it seemed that the impact was
relatively small.
Penguin — April 24, 2012
After weeks of speculation
about an "Over-optimization penalty", Google finally rolled out the
"Webspam Update", which was soon after dubbed "Penguin." Penguin
adjusted a number of spam factors, including keyword stuffing, and
impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.
Panda 3.5 (#13) — April 19, 2012
In the middle of a busy
week for the algorthim, Google quietly rolled out a Panda data update. A
mix of changes made the impact difficult to measure, but this appears
to have been a fairly routine update with minimal impact.
Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012
After a number of
webmasters reported ranking shuffles, Google confirmed that a data error
had caused some domains to be mistakenly treated as parked domains (and
thereby devalued). This was not an intentional algorithm change.
March 50-Pack — April 3, 2012
Google posted another
batch of update highlights, covering 50 changes in March. These included
confirmation of Panda 3.4, changes to anchor-text "scoring", updates to
image search, and changes to how queries with local intent are
interpreted.
Panda 3.4 (#12) — March 23, 2012
Google announced another
Panda update, this time via Twitter as the update was rolling out. Their
public statements estimated that Panda 3.4 impacted about 1.6% of
search results.
Search Quality Video — March 12, 2012
This wasn't an algorithm
update, but Google published a rare peek into a search quality meeting.
For anyone interested in the algorithm, the video provides a lot of
context to both Google's process and their priorities. It's also a
chance to see Amit Singhal in action.
Panda 3.3 (#11) — February 27, 2012
Google rolled out another
post-"flux" Panda update, which appeared to be relatively minor. This
came just 3 days after the 1-year anniversary of Panda, an unprecedented
lifespan for a named update.
February 40-Pack (2) — February 27, 2012
Google published a second
set of "search quality highlights" at the end of the month, claiming
more than 40 changes in February. Notable changes included multiple
image-search updates, multiple freshness updates (including phasing out 2
old bits of the algorithm), and a Panda update.
Venice — February 27, 2012
As part of their monthly
update, Google mentioned code-name "Venice". This local update appeared
to more aggressively localize organic results and more tightly integrate
local search data. The exact roll-out date was unclear.
Google
Venice Update – New Ranking Opportunities for Local SEO (Catalyst
eMarketing)
February 17-Pack — February 3, 2012
Google released another
round of "search quality highlights" (17 in all). Many related to speed,
freshness, and spell-checking, but one major announcement was tighter
integration of Panda into the main search index.
Ads Above The Fold — January 19, 2012
Google updated their page
layout algorithms to devalue sites with too much ad-space above the
"fold". It was previously suspected that a similar factor was in play in
Panda. The update had no official name, although it was referenced as
"Top Heavy" by some SEOs.
Page
layout algorithm improvement (Google)
Panda 3.2 (#10) — January 18, 2012
Google confirmed a Panda
data update, although suggested that the algorithm hadn't changed. It
was unclear how this fit into the "Panda Flux" scheme of more frequent
data updates.
Search + Your World — January 10, 2012
Google announced a radical
shift in personalization - aggressively pushing Google+ social data and
user profiles into SERPs. Google also added a new, prominent toggle
button to shut off personalization.
Search,
plus Your World (Google)
January 30-Pack — January 5, 2012
Google announced 30
changes over the previous month, including image search landing-page
quality detection, more relevant site-links, more rich snippets, and
related-query improvements. The line between an "algo update" and a
"feature" got a bit more blurred.
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