Core Algo Update – January 8, 2016
Google representatives confirmed ‘common core ranking algorithm updates’ that ran for more than one week. It was also officially confirmed that the update ‘It’s not Penguin’, ‘nor Panda’, although it could technically be connected to Panda given it’s recent integration into the core algo.
Panda as part of Core Algo – January 8, 2016
Panda was announced to no longer be a spam filter but one of the ranking signals, part of the core algo. It seems though that Panda scores do not run in real time, but on their own and at different intervals. The precise date when Panda was incorporated is yet to be known.
Unconfirmed update – November 18, 2015
Although numerous ranking fluctuations were reported across the industry, no official confirmation of a Google update was received, other than the usual ‘We make 100s of changes every year’.
Mobile Friendly Update – April 21, 2015
As scheduled, Google announced they’re starting the global roll out of their mobile-friendly update, affecting only search rankings on mobile devices. The update introduces mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor and applies to individual pages, not entire websites.
Pirate – October 24, 2014
After being criticized for a long time for not doing enough to fight piracy, Google finally announced an update its long neglected filtering system. Near the end of the month torrent tracker websites took a dive in the search results marking the rollout of the Pirate Update.
Penguin 3 – October 18, 2014
Google announced a new Penguin refresh, that would be slowly rolling-out over the course of a few weeks and would be impacting less than 1% of English queries.
‘In The News’ box – October 02, 2014
Google made a change in the display of the News-box results, and later announced they had expanded the news websites links set, including Reddit feeds.
Panda 4.1 – September 23, 2014
Google announced a new Panda update, that would ‘slowly rollout’ in a two weeks interval. The new update aims to identify low-quality content more precisely and would affect 3 to 5% of queries, depending on location.
Authorship Removed – August 24, 2014
John Mueller of Google Webmaster Tools announced that Google will completely stop showing authorship information in search results – both author photos and bylines.
HTTPS/SSL as Ranking Signal – August 6, 2014
Following several months of testing, Google officially announced their decision to start using HTTPS as a ranking signal. Currently the update would affect less than 1% of queries, but we should expect for HTTPS to gain weight over time and lose its ‘very lightweight signal’ status.
Pigeon – July 24, 2014
A major local algorithm update was released, aiming to improve local search results. Although the core changes brought by the new algo are ‘behind the scenes’, Google announced that it ‘ties deeper’ into their core search algorithm.
Authorship Photo Drop – June 28, 2014
Google announces the drop of profile photo and circle count from authorship in search results, as consequence of their decision to clean up the visual design of search results.
Payday Loan 3.0 – June 12, 2014
Soon after Payday Loan 2.0, Matt Cutts announced the third version of the algorithm, designed to go after different signals. While 2.0 is targeting specific websites, spammy queries are the objective of this new update.
Panda 4.0 – May 19, 2014
Matt Cutts announced the release of a major Panda update, affecting different languages to different degrees. For English-language the amount of affected queries revolving around 7,5%.
Payday Loan 2.0 – May 16, 2014
After days of speculation, Google has confirmed a new update to their Payday Loan Algorithm, unrelated to Panda or Penguin, targeting ‘very spammy queries’.