Timeline of Google Search

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Google Search, offered by Google, is the most widely used search engine on the World Wide Web as of 2024, with over three billion searches a day. This page covers key events in the history of Google's search service.

For a history of Google the company, including all of Google's products, acquisitions, and corporate changes, see the history of Google page.

Big picture

Time period	Development
1996–1997	Development of basic technology, launch of search engine
2000	Internationalization: search is launched in 13 new languages.
2001–2004	Google launches many new search categories, such as Google News, Google Books, and Google Scholar.
2002 onward	The beginning of explicitly announced search algorithm updates.
2008–2010	Faster search experience for user: Google Suggest (experimental launch 2004, integrated into main search engine 2008), Google Instant (2010), and Google Instant Previews.
2005, 2009, 2012	Google starts using web histories to help in searches (2005), experimentally launches social search (2009), and launches Search Plus Your World (2012).
2009–2010	Caffeine update for faster indexing of the web and fresher and on-topic search results.
2011–2014	Google Panda (an update to some parts of Google's search algorithm) is released in 2011, with announced updates continuing till September 2014 (Panda 4.1). Stated goals include cracking down on spam, content farms, scrapers, and websites with a high ad-to-content ratio.
2012–2014	Google Penguin (an update to some parts of Google's search algorithm) is released in 2012, with the goal of concentrating on webspam. The last named update is in October 2014. Starting December 2014, Penguin moves to continuous updates (Penguin Everflux).
2012 onward	Google integrates the Knowledge Graph into its search results.
2013	Google releases Google Hummingbird, an update that may enable semantic search in the future and integrate better with the Knowledge Graph.
2014 onward	Google makes a major update to its algorithm for local search. The update gets the name Google Pigeon.
2015 onward	Google alerts webmasters to mobile usability issues in January, and announces a major update to its search algorithm, to be rolled out starting April 21, 2015, that will heavily demote mobile-unfriendly sites for web searches on mobile devices.

Full timeline

NOTE: Some search updates in recent years (including core updates starting 2019) are covered in the later section #List of search updates made in later years.

Year	Month and date (if available)	Event type	Subtype / affected aspect	Affected algorithm or specific entity	Event
1996	January–March	Prelude			Larry Page and Sergey Brin, graduate students in computer science at Stanford University, begin working on BackRub, the precursor to Google Search, as well as on the underlying technology for it that they call PageRank (a pun on Page's surname and the "page" in webpage). Page begins work alone initially, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, and Brin joins him shortly thereafter. The project is an outgrowth of their work on the Stanford Digital Library Project. Web crawling begins in March.
1997	September 15	Domain			The domain Google.com is registered.
1999		Gaming of search results (Google bomb)			The first known instance of a Google bomb is reported around this time, with a search for "more evil than Satan itself" bringing up the Microsoft website. The perpetrators of the Google bomb are not known.
1999		Background search algorithm development			The Hilltop algorithm is developed by Krishna Bharat (at Compaq Systems Research Center at the time) and George A. Mihăilă (at University of Toronto). It would eventually be acquired by Google in 2003 (where Bharat would be working at the time) and used to power Google News.
2000	May 9	Internationalization			Google adds ten new languages: French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish.
2000	June	Partnership			Yahoo! switches its search engine from Inktomi to Google Search. An article on the switch in The Guardian says that the likely reasons are Google's technical superiority, larger and more comprehensive index, and its not taking money to boost search rankings. At this time, Yahoo! is a widely known brand while Google is still a more niche product used mainly by a more technically savvy audience. Some would claim retrospectively that this would play a key role in spreading the word about Google, given that as part of the deal, Yahoo! links to Google as the technology powering its search engine; however, the relative importance of this factor, compared to the role of word of mouth, is unclear.
2000	September 12	Internationalization			Google launches search services in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
2000	September	Gaming of search results (Google bomb)			A Google bomb is created around this time by Hugedisk Men's Magazine, an online humor magazine, with the search term "dumb motherfucker" linked to a website selling George W. Bush merchandise. A similar attempt for an Al Gore website is not successful.
2000	October 23	Advertising			Google AdWords launches with 350 customers. Historically, Google's search results were completely free of financial influence from the sites appearing on the page; with this change, the "organic" search results (the normal search results) continue to be free of financial influences, and the paid search advertisements are clearly delineated from the organic search results. AdWords is Google's second advertising program, after Premium Sponsorships that were launched in August 2000 (that would eventually be subsumed into AdWords).
2000	December	User experience			Google Toolbar is released, allowing people to search without visiting the Google homepage, and also offering them more information about the webpages they visit. Some commentators have argued that this marks the beginning of search engine optimization and the Google Dance.
2001	January 2	Web ecosystem			Wikipedia (specifically, English Wikipedia) launches as a side project of Nupedia and starts growing rapidly. Wikipedia would eventually launch in hundreds of languages and become the most widely used reference website on the Internet. Wikipedia results generally meet at least a minimum of quality standards and are not spam, and starting around the late 2000s, Google would often rank Wikipedia highly in many kinds of search results, thereby guaranteeing that it was offering at least one search result that was not spam and of at least moderately high quality. However, over time, as the web would expand to become home to a wider range of reference websites, Google's reliance on Wikipedia would reduce.
2001	April 6	Gaming of search results (Google bomb)			Adam Mathes coins the term talentless hack. He creates a Google bomb for the term "talentless hack" to the website of his friend Andy Pressman by recruiting fellow webloggers to link to his friend's page with the desired term.
2001	July	Search category			Google launches Google Image Search with over 250 million images in its search database.
2001	September 11				The September 11 attacks take place, with two planes flying into the Twin Towers in New York City. At this time, Google's index is updated monthly, so it does not pick up information about the attacks, so users searching for information about the Twin Towers are shown outdated search results about the Twin Towers rather than about the recent developments. Google addresses this by manually adding links to news websites that are covering recent developments. This leads Google to start focusing on more frequent crawling and indexing. It is also the impetus for Google engineer Krishna Bharat to get the idea for, and lead the development of, Google News.
2001	December	Review			Google releases its first annual Google Zeitgeist.
2002					The Googlefight website (unaffiliated with Google), that allows people to compare results of two search queries on Google, likely launches in this year. It is given permission by Google to use the name sometime during the year.
2002	January 8				The term Googlewhack is introduced by Gary Stock for a search query that has exactly two words, without quotes, and returns exactly one result.
2002	September	Search category			Google launches Google News, a year after the September 11, 2001 attacks that were the impetus for this launch.
2002	September	Search algorithm update	Ranking		Google makes the first publicly announced update to its search algorithm. A number of Internet commentators view this as the death of PageRank (the name for Google's system for ranking pages) and a significant decline in the quality of Google's search results.
2002	October	Partnership			Yahoo!, that had already been using Google, makes a switch to use Google's crawler-based search results as its primary search results, deprioritizing its directory listings (which are still available but no longer used to power the default search experience).
2002	December 12	Search category			Google launches Froogle (a play on "frugal"), a price comparison service whose index is built based on Google's web crawler. Froogle would later be renamed Google Product Search and eventually Google Shopping.
2003	February	Search algorithm update			Google acquires the patent for the Hilltop algorithm (developed in 1999) and implements it in Google News. Krishna Bharat, one of the developers of the Hilltop algorithm, is leading Google News at the time of the acquisition.
2003	February	Search algorithm update	Indexing, ranking		Google announces the Boston update at SES Boston. This is the oldest of Google's named search algorithm updates. Boston begins a trend of monthly updates that affect both indexing and ranking, with each update causing significant changes in search ranking (compared to very little change at other times), with SEOs watching closely, a phenomenon that would be dubbed the Google Dance. This would continue until the Fritz update in July 2003.
2003	April	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google announces the Cassandra update. The update claims to crack down on link spam, including mutual links between co-owned websites, as well as hidden text and hidden links.
2003	May	Search algorithm update	Indexing, ranking		Google announces the Dominic update. Commentators believe that the update affects the way backlinks are counted, and many webmasters report new bots from Google that bounced.
2003	June	Search algorithm update			Google announces what will later turn out to have been the last of its regular monthly updates. This update is called the Esmeralda update.
2003	July	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google announces the Fritz update, and also a change to its update policy, as it moves towards continuous rather than batch processing of updates to its index. While algorithm updates still happen in larger discrete batches, index updates are now continuous, which gets rid of the big swings (the "Google Dance") that occurred during big index updates in the past, while increasing day-over-day volatility in search results.
2003	September	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google announces a "supplemental index" in order to be able to index some parts of the web more rapidly. The supplemental index would eventually be scrapped.
2003	November	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google announces the Florida update, which commentators consider game-changing in that it completely destroys the value of 1990s SEO tactics and ushers in a new era of search engine optimization. The update is so significant that it would continue to be discussed and studied in the 2020s.
2003	December	Search category			Google launches Google Print, that would later become Google Books.
2004	January	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google announces the Austin update, to continue with the work of combating SEO tactics that Florida had made good progress on.
2004	February 17–20	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google announces the Brandy update, a massive index expansion, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), increased attention to anchor text relevance, and the concept of link "neighborhoods."
2004	August 19	Parent company update			Google has its initial public offering (IPO) and becomes a public company.
2004	October	Search category			Google launches Google Scholar, its search service for academic publications.
2004	December	User experience	Search suggestions		Google Suggest is introduced as a Google Labs feature. This makes search suggestions as a person is typing a search query.
2005	January	Search algorithm update	Indexing	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	To combat link spam, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft collectively introduce the nofollow attribute.
2005	February 2	Search algorithm update			Google announces the Allegra update, whose effects are unclear.
2005	February 8	Search category			Google launches Google Maps, a web mapping platform. While different in appearance than a search engine, with more mapping-specific functionality such as street view, directions (walking, transit, driving), traffic conditions, etc., Google Maps would, with the launch of universal search and over the years, get integrated into the search experience, particularly for use cases such as local search.
2005	May	Search algorithm update			Google announces the Bourbon update.
2005	June	Tools for websites		Sitemaps	Google allows webmasters to submit XML sitemaps, bypassing the need for HTML sitemaps.
2005	June	User experience	Personalization		Google launches personalized search that automatically taps into users' web histories.
2005	June	User experience	Mobile search		Google launches Google Mobile Web Search.
2005	September	Search algorithm update	Ranking		Although Google denies running an update, Matt Cutts clarifies that PageRank was refreshed for some pages recently (with a three-month refresh cycle) causing changes to many site ranks. Observers call this the Gilligan update.
2005	September–November	Search algorithm update			Google announces and rolls out the Jagger update in three stages, one in September, one in October, one in November.
2005	December (rollout continues till March 2006)	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google begins rolling out the Big Daddy update, continuing for the next few months until March 2006. The update changes URL canonization, site redirects, and related items.
2006	March 21	Web ecosystem			Twitter launches. Twitter would grow into one of the leading sources of public, real-time information, helping create a more real-time public web and informing Google's efforts to make its own search more real-time.
2006	April 26	Tools for websites	Private communication between websites and Google	Google Search Console	Building on the sitemaps functionality it had introduced last year, Google launches Webmaster Tools. This would eventually morph into Google Search Console in 2015.
2006	May	Analytics	Public information on search trends		Google releases Google Trends to make it easy to visualize the popularity of searches over time.
2006	October 5	Search category			Google launches Google Code Search as part of Google Labs. This searches through open-source code repositories and allows the use of regular expressions in search, making it similar to a grep tool. The discontinuation of the service would be announced in October 2011 and the service would remain online until March 2013.
2006	October 23	Customized search			Google publicly launches Google Custom Search. The main part of this is Custom Search Engine, a functionality that allows users to build search engines with their own custom modifications of Google Search, specifically, restriction of the search queries to a subset of the web (e.g., a specific set of domains). This would eventually be renamed Google Programmable Search Engine.
2006	December 14	Search category			Google launches Google Patents, a search engine that indexes patents and patent applications.
2007	May 16	Search algorithm update	Ranking, presentation		Google launches Universal Search, integrating traditional search results with results from Google News, Google Image Search, Google Video Search, and other verticals. This is believed to be a major milestone in the user experience.
2007	June	Search algorithm update			The Buffy update happens. It is not considered a deliberate update, but rather an accumulation of many smaller changes.
2008	March 14	Transparency	Quality raters guidelines		For the first time on record, Google's quality raters guidelines are leaked. Updated versions of the guidelines would continue to be leaked for several years until Google finally decides to make the guidelines publicly available in November 2015.
2008	March 24	User experience	Iterative search		The New York Times reports that Google now offers "search within search": when people search for names of websites, the top search result, which links to the website, may include a search box to further search within the website.
2008	March/April	Search algorithm update	Ranking		The Dewey update seems to lead to a large-scale shuffling of results. Some observers believe that Google is pushing its own properties, such as Google Books, but evidence of this is limited.
2008	August 25	User experience	Search suggestions		Google Suggest (later called Autocomplete), originally launched as a Labs feature in December 2004, now becomes part of Google's main site.
2008	September 2	Parent company update, complementary product	Browser		Google releases Google Chrome in beta for Windows (XP and newer). This marks Google's entry into the web browser space. Chrome would eventually get to a market share of over 50% and become the default browser on most Android phones. The relationship of Chrome with Google Search would be multi-fold. First, right from the outset, Google uses an "omnibox" where the address bar serves the dual purpose of being a search bar, so that people can type in either urls or search queries, with the search queries being run using the user's selected search engine (with Google Search being the default selection). Second, and in the reverse direction, information that Google collects from Chrome, suitably anonymized, gives Google a better picture of websites and users' web browsing patterns, which informs its search strategy. For instance, starting in 2021, Google uses core web vitals data collected anonymously through Chrome as part of its page experience signal that is a ranking signal.
2008	September 23	Parent company update, complementary product	Operating system		Google introduced Android at a press conference. Android would grow to become one of two major mobile operating systems, with iOS being the other one. The default browser on most Android devices would be Chrome and the default search engine would be Google Search, and the collection of Google apps would come preinstalled on most Android phones, helping cement Google's influence on mobile phone use, which would grow over time.
2009	February	Search algorithm update			The Vince update happens. Matt Cutts calls it a minor change, but some SEO commentators consider it major.
2009	February	Tools for websites	Indexing	Markup syntax	Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! announce joint support for tags that help bots identify canonical versions of webpages without affecting human visitors.
2009	August 10 (announced), rollout completed and made live June 8, 2010	Search algorithm update	Indexing, ranking	Faster updates to search results	Named Caffeine, this update is announced on August 10, 2009. It promises faster crawling, expansion of the index, and a near-real-time integration of indexing and ranking. The rollout is made live on June 8, 2010.
2009	October 26	Search category	Social search		Google introduces Social Search as a Google Labs feature. The feature is expanded further in late January 2010.
2009	December 7	Search category		Real-time search	Google launches real-time search for real-time Twitter feeds, Google News, and other freshly indexed content.
2010	Late April, early May	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	The update, named May Day, is an algorithm change affecting the long tail. Foreshadowing Google Panda, the update penalizes sites with large amounts of thin content.
2010	September 8	User experience	Search suggestions		Google launches Google Instant, described as a search-before-you-type feature: as users are typing, Google predicts the user's whole search query (using the same technology as in Google Suggest, later called the autocomplete feature) and instantaneously shows results for the top prediction. Google claims that this is estimated to save 2–5 seconds per search query. SEO commentators initially believe that this will have a major effect on search engine optimization, but soon revise downward their estimate of the impact. Google Instant would eventually be retired on July 26, 2017, in light of Google's increasing focus on mobile search, since instant search results don't play well with mobile search.
2010	November 9	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google launches Instant Previews, a feature where users can view previews of the ranked pages by hovering over the links in the search engine results page. The feature would be dropped in April 2013 due to low usage.
2010	December 1	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google updates its algorithm to penalize websites that provide a bad experience to users. The update is prompted by a November 26 New York Times story about a fraudulent company called DecorMyEyes that used the publicity generated by negative customer reviews to rise in the search engine rankings.
2010	December	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Social signals	Both Google and Microsoft's Bing indicate that they use social signals, including signals from Twitter and Facebook, to rank search results.
2011	January–February	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Foreshadowing Google Panda, Google penalizes Overstock.com and JCPenney for the use of SEO tactics.
2011	January 28	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google launches its Attribution algorithm change to better sieve out websites that scrape content. Matt Cutts claims that slightly over 2% of search queries are affected, but less than 0.5% of results change noticeably.
2011	February 23–24	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google launches Google Panda, a major update affecting 12% of search queries. The update continues with the earlier work of cracking down on spam, content farms, scrapers, and websites with a high ad-to-content ratio. The rollout is gradual over several months, and Panda will see many further updates.
2011	March 30	User experience, incorporation of user feedback			Google launches the +1 button so that users can offer feedback on search results. Commentators liken this to the like button seen on Facebook.
2011	April 11	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda to all English queries worldwide (not limited to English-speaking countries) and integrates new signals into its ranking algorithm.
2011	May 9	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out further minor updates to Panda but does not discuss them in detail, saying they are more like Panda 2.1 than Panda 3.0.
2011	June 2	Tools for websites	Indexing	Markup syntax	Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft announce Schema.org, a joint initiative that supports a richer range of tags that websites can use to convey better information.
2011	June 21	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda 2.2.
2011	July 23	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda 2.3.
2011	August 12	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda 2.4, making Panda available in all languages around the world, except Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
2011	August 16	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google rolls out expanded sitelinks, starting with 12-pack links (but later reducing to 6-pack).
2011	September 15	Tools for websites	Indexing	Markup syntax	Google rolls out pagination elements for websites to communicate to Google that various webpages are different pages of the same article.
2011	September 21	Bias concerns in search results	Ranking		In hearings before the United States Senate, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp and Jeffrey Katz of Nextag claim that Google search results are biased against competing offering s such as the reviews on Yelp, while Google still benefits from the information in these reviews. Eric Schmidt of Google claims that Google search results are not biased, and Google aims to offer search results that best meet the needs of users.
2011	September 30	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda 2.5. Although the specifics of the update are unclear, a few sites gain significantly and a few others lose significantly. Other minor flux updates occur on October 3, October 5 and October 13, and some commentators call these Panda 3.0 and 3.1.
2011	October 18	User experience	Privacy of search queries		Google announces that they will start encrypting all search queries for security purposes. This disrupts organic keyword referral data for many websites, making search engine optimization harder. By this point, Google makes search query data available at daily granularity for websites through Webmaster Tools, and encourages websites to make use of that information; however, this data is only at daily granularity and does not allow websites to determine what search queries led to a particular user session.
2011	November 3	Search algorithm update	Indexing, ranking	Faster updates to search results	Google announces a Freshness update that would give priority to fresher, more recent search results, and claims this could affect 35% of search queries. The algorithm largely affects time-sensitive queries. A number of sites gain and many others lose as a result of the update.
2011	November 14	Search algorithm update			Google announces a 10-pack of updates, and says that this begins a series of monthly announcements of packs of updates.
2011	November 18	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google releases an allegedly minor Panda update, which SEO commentators label as Panda 3.1, despite the lack of a generally agreed upon update named Panda 3.0.
2012	December 2011-January 2012 (announced January 5)	Search algorithm update, user experience			A 30-change pack of updates, including landing-page quality detection, more relevant site-links, more rich snippets, and related-query improvements.
2012	January 10	Search algorithm update, user experience			Google launches Search Plus Your World, a deep integration of one's social data into search. SEO commentators are critical of how the search results favor Google+ and push it to users, compared to more widely used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
2012	January 19	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating bad user experiences (heavy content, slow content, bad user experience)	Google updates its algorithm to introduce a penalty for websites with too many ads "above the fold". The update has no name, but some SEOs use "Top Heavy" to describe the update.
2012	February 27	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Local search	The update, codenamed Venice, is announced as part of Google's end-of-February 40-pack update. Venice seems to give substantially increased weightage to local results (location inferred from the user's IP and other signals) for many search queries, such as those looking for businesses of various types in the vicinity. On the same date, Google rolls out Panda 3.3, which it bills as a data refresh rather than an algorithm change.
2012	March 23, April 19, April 27	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	March 23: Google rolls out Panda 3.4, which is claimed to affect 1.6% of search queries. Google quietly rolls out Panda 3.5 (April 19) and Panda 3.6 (April 27), with minimal impact.
2012	April 24	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google launches its "Webspam update" which would soon become known as Google Penguin.
2012	May 16	Search algorithm update, user experience	Ranking, information in SERPs	Knowledge Graph	Google starts rolling out Knowledge Graph, used by Google internally to store semantic relationships between objects. Google now begins displaying supplemental information about objects related to search queries on the side.
2012	May 25	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google rolls out an update of Google Penguin, variously called Penguin 1.1 and Penguin 2.
2012	June–September	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out updates to Google Panda: 3.7 (June 8), 3.8 (June 25), 3.9 (July 24), 3.9.1 (August 20), and 3.9.2 (September 18).
2012	July 26	Third-party tracking	SERP volatility measurement		Moz launches MozCast, the "Google weather report". The tool, available online at mozcast.com, tracks the "temperature" of changes to Google's search algorithm and rankings on a day-to-day basis, helping provide better context to search algorithm changes beyond just the biggest ones.
2012	August 10	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating policy violations (copyright)	Google announces that it will start penalizing websites with repeat copyright infringements, possibly as measured by DMCA takedown requests. Some SEO commentators call this the Pirate update.
2012	September 27	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out a major update to Google Panda (the update is to the underlying algorithm, rather than merely being a data refresh), that would be dubbed Panda 4.0, but SEO commentators decide to simply call it Panda #20. The change is estimated to have affected 2.4% of search queries.
2012	September 27	Search algorithm update	Ranking		Google announces changes in the way it handles Exact-Match Domains. The change is estimated to have affected 0.6% of search queries.
2012	October 5	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google releases minor tweaks to Penguin, affecting about 0.3% of search queries. SEO commentators call it Penguin #3, following the lead of Panda in ditching the use of 1.x notation in favor of labeling updates by number.
2012-13	November 2012-January 2013	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google releases updates to Google Panda: #21 (November 5, affecting 1.1% of queries), #22 (November 21, data refresh only), #23 (December 21, data refresh only, affecting 1.3% of queries), and #24 (January 22, affecting 1.2% of queries).
2012	December 4	Search algorithm update		Knowledge Graph	Google adds Knowledge Graph to non-English queries, and says that the change goes beyond translation and also adds enhanced Knowledge Graph capabilities.
2013	March	Third-party tracking	SERP volatibility measurement		Algoroo, a tool to track changes in Google Search rankings and identify algorithm changes, launches, initially in pre-alpha.
2013	March 13–14	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google rolls out Panda #25. Remarks by Matt Cutts at SMX West give people the impression that this is the last update to Panda as a distinct entity and it will thereafter be integrated into the core algorithm. On June 11, 2013, Cutts clarifies that Panda updates roll out over 10-day periods every month and are not continuous.
2013	April 25	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google drops Instant Previews, citing low usage.
2013	May 22	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google rolls out a new version of Google Penguin that it calls Penguin 2.0, which SEO commentators call Penguin #4.
2013	July (or earlier)	User experience	Information in SERPs		"Answer boxes" (an early name for featured snippets) are spotted and discussed by SEO experts. These build upon Google's knowledge graph capabilities, to show a box containing the key "answer" to the search query, usually right above the search results. These are distinct from the knowledge graph cards (also known as knowledge cards or knowledge panels) that appear on the right.
2013	August 6	Search algorithm update, user experience	Ranking		Google adds a new feature called "in-depth articles" in its search results to feature long-form content of long-lasting value.
2013	August 21–22 (approximate date for rollout), September 26 (announcement)	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Core	Google releases Google Hummingbird, a core algorithm update that may enable more semantic search and more effective use of the Knowledge Graph in the future.
2013	October 4	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google announces what it calls Penguin 2.1, its fifth version of Penguin, claiming to affect 1% of searches. The effect seems minor.
2014	May 16	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Payday Loans 2.0 algorithm change is purely low quality external link related and over-optimization. This specifically goes after high search, spammy queries such as “Payday Loans”. Google is trying to devalue sites that perform in link buying and other black hat methods to game the algorithm.
2014	May 20	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Panda 4.0 is implemented to devalue sites that contained poor / low quality content. This has been an ongoing battle that Google has been chipping away at for years. Google has claimed that the algorithm change has impacted roughly 7.5% of all search queries.
2014	July 3	Team			Matt Cutts, a Distinguished Engineer at Google who has been heading the web spam team since 2004, goes on leave till October. He later extends his leave through 2015.
2014	July 24	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Local search (Pigeon)	Google announces the rollout of Google Pigeon, a major update to its search algorithm for "local" searches such as searches related to events or businesses near one. The Pigeon update gives more weight to various search signals to deliver more relevant local results.
2014	August 6	Search algorithm update	Ranking	HTTPS boost	Google announces search results will give preference to sites using HTTP Secure and SSL encryption. This added ranking signal would be a "lightweight" ranking boost.
2014	August 28	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google Authorship is removed completely from search results, as already on December 2013 it reduced number of images showing in SERP's. Now it's totally gone to extinction due to lower adaptation rate by authors, to reduce mobile bandwidth and to improve user experience.
2014	September 23 (rollout begins), September 25 (announcement)	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google announces that a significant update to Google Panda is rolling out over the next few weeks. The update is dubbed Panda 4.1. An analysis reveals that the update was heavy on attacking affiliate marketing, keyword stuffing, security warnings, and deception.
2014	October 17	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Penguin 3.0 is implemented as a refresh to re-evaluate sites demoted in the last update due to webspam tactics and demote sites using black hat SEO tactics. This refresh is rolled out globally over several weeks impacting roughly 1% of English-language queries.
2014	October 21	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating policy violations (copyright)	Pirate 2.0 update dubbed by SEO commentators following the similar update in 2012 which penalized sites deemed as violators of copyright laws. This refresh targets a relatively small number of known sites causing dramatic drops in ranking. In tandem with this Google introduces a new Ad Format for queries where people may be searching for copyrighted media, requiring publishers to purchase ads to promote original content over the unauthorized copies.
2014	December 10	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google announces that Google Penguin will switch to continuous updates, also known as "Penguin Everflux".
2014	December 22	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Local search (Pigeon)	Google Pigeon, the local search algorithm update, is rolled out to the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
2015	February 4	User experience	Information in SERPs		Direct action links and expanded text in answer boxes are spotted for searches for content beyond Google's own documentation (in November 2014, these had been spotted but only for Google's own documentation). This leads to further discussion around optimizing for one's content to show up in the answer box. Possibly related: many independent sources report significant fluctuations in Google Search results, but Google does not officially confirm any changes.
2015	April 21 (pre-announced February 26)	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Mobile usability	On January 19, 2015, Google sends emails to webmasters about mobile usability issues on the websites, leading people to speculate that a major mobile usability update for search rankings is underway. On February 26, 2015, Google announces that demotion of mobile-unfriendly sites for searches on mobile devices will commence on April 21, 2015.
2015	May 3	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Core	Google says it has made a core algorithm change impacting "quality signals". Before the official announcement, commentators had dubbed the changes as "Phantom 2".
2015	May 20	Tools for websites	Private communication between websites and Google	Google Search Console	Google rebrands Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console. Google Search Console offers websites various pieces of information regarding how Google is seeing their site. The rebranding reflects the observation that the tool is used by a much wider range of people than those who would traditionally be considered webmasters.
2015	July 17	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Panda)	Google announces an update to Google Panda, dubbed as Panda 4.2 by commentators. Google says that the change affects between 2% and 3% of search queries. Search engine commentators do not notice any sharp changes to search traffic, and expect the changes to be rolled in gradually. By September, it appears that many websites that had seen gains due to Panda 4.2 are seeing those gains reversed.
2015	October 26	Search algorithm update	Ranking		Google announces that RankBrain, a machine learning-based engine (using neural networks), has been the third most influential factor in its search rankings for the last few months. The actual rollout date is not confirmed, but commentators pin the launch time to Spring 2015. It is most useful for new search queries, that account for about 15% of search queries. Later discussions of Google search quality would mark the introduction of Rankbrain as a turning point (for the worse) in Google's helpfulness with obscure searches, arguing that Google incorrecty approximates the search query to a related, more mainstream search query rather than trying to literallly address the obscure search query.
2015	November 12			Navboost	The first public mention of Navboost, a system to collect click feedback, seems to be from this date; however, this mention is not from Google but from Pinterest, describing their own systems.
2015	November 19	Transparency	Quality raters guidelines		Google releases the full versions of its search quality raters guidelines (QRG), a 160-page-long handbook that it previously only gave human evaluators to rate websites. The guidelines help websites understand what qualities Google Search would like to see in websites, although ratings made by raters based on these guidelines do not directly change search engine rankings. The release follows a leak in October 2015 of the same guidelines. Two important pieces of jargon that gain currency in the SEO world due to these guidelines are: YMYL (your money or your life), a term for websites that offer information or allow people to take actions that have the potential to negatively impact the end user's health and wealth (examples include sites related to e-commerce, financial advice, medical advice, and legal advice), and E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust), factors that are important to Google Search for ranking sites, and even more important for YMYL sites.
2016	February 3	Team			Amit Singhal steps down from his position as Vice President of Search at Google after 15 years in that role. He is replaced by John Giannandrea who works in artificial intelligence at Alphabet, Google's parent company. There is speculation that this will lead to more incorporation of machine learning and AI techniques in Google Search.
2016	February 18 and 23	Advertising			Google makes changes to Google AdWords, removing right-column ads and rolling out 4-ad top blocks on searches with commercial intent. The change has implications on organic search CTRs for such searches, since it pushes the organic search results further down the page, potentially reducing organic search CTRs. Up to three additional ads may be shown below the 10 organic search results, and additional ads may be shown on the second page.
2016	May 12 (announced March 16)	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Mobile usability	Google rolls out a ranking signal boost to benefit mobile-friendly websites on mobile devices. This is the second update of this sort, with the previous update in April 2015.
2016	September 1	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Local search	SEO commentators note massive changes to the algorithm for local searches, the biggest since Pigeon. The update is labeled Possum, indicating that some business listings have been filtered rather than actually disappearing. This is attributed to an updated, smarter deduplication algorithm, finer geolocation-awareness, and more decoupling of algorithms used for local search results from the main search results. The implications of Possum on local SEO would be discussed for months to come.
2016	September 23	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics (Penguin)	Google announces a Penguin update, and says that Penguin is now part of Google's core ranking algorithm. Commentators dub this Penguin 4.0. SEOMOz identifies likely dates for phase 1 and phase 2 rollouts as September 27 and October 6.
2017	January 10	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating bad user experiences (heavy content, slow content, bad user experience)	Google announces that it will crack down on intrusive interstitials on mobile web pages, such as popups that cover the main content, standalone interstitials that the user has to dismiss, and above-the-fold content that looks like an interstitial. The plan to introduce this penalty was announced in August 2016.
2017	February 21	Customized search			Google announces that it is deprecating Google Site Search, its offering for websites that offers a highly site-customized site search solution. Starting April 1, 2017, it will discontinue sales of Google Site Search. The product will be completely shut down by April 1, 2018.
2017	April 25	User experience, incorporation of user feedback			Google announces quality improvements to search and more direct feedback options for users for search results and Featured Snippets (the new, official name for what the SEO community had previously called "answer boxes").
2017	July 26	User experience	Search suggestions		In light of its increasing focus on mobile search, Google drops Google Instant, its instant search feature where it shows the top results for the expected completion of the search query even before the user presses Enter. This is because instant search results don't play well with mobile search.
2017	late October and November	User experience	Information in SERPs		Search engine trackers notice a decrease in the percentage of search queries showing featured snippets from ~16% to ~14%, after a mostly steady increase for two years. This is also accompanied by an increase in the percentage of knowledge panels, mostly for the same queries.
2017	November	Transparency	Communication of algorithm updates		The Twitter account @searchliaison is created, through which Google's search liaison Danny Sullivan can officially communicate updates related to Google Search algorithm updates. Sullivan would continue to use his own Twitter handle @dannysullivan for updates that are not official communications.
2017	December 1	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google increases the length of the snippets it includes for each search result.
2018	March	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Core	Google makes a core algorithm update that affects the rankings of a number of websites, some positively, some negatively. The update is labeled the "brackets" update by Glenn Gabe. Google as well as SEO commentators say that websites adversely affected should not be looking to make quick fixes, but rather should continue improving their site over the long term.
2018	January 15	Review			A blog post by Tim Bray titled "Google Memory Loss" provides evidence suggesting that Google can no longer reliably be used to find old content even with exact keyword searches. In comparison, in the specific examples he checked, Bray was able to find the pages using both Bing and DuckDuckGo. Bray's post is shared to Hacker News where it gets an unusually large number of view and comments from users who share their frustrations around Google and its alleged decline. The RankBrain update is cited as a turning point (for the worse) in Google's helpfulness for obscure searches by many commenters.
2018	March 14	User experience	Information in SERPs		For one week, Google experiments with defaulting to show no search results for simple queries such as mathematical expressions and date/time lookups, with the search results available through a button that needs to be clicked to show them. Most real-world queries are not affected, but there is discussion of what this experiment means for the future of search.
2018	March 26	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google announces that it is rolling out its switch to mobile-first indexing at a wider scale; the version of a page that Google will keep in its index and use to make ranking decisions will be the mobile version.
2019	May	Search algorithm update, user experience	Personalization		Google announces Incognito mode for Google Maps and Google search.
2018	May 13	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google reduces the average length of snippets included with each search result from about 300 characters to 150-160 characters, similar to the level prior to the increase in snippet length at the end of November 2017.
2018	June 14	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google moves videos in its desktop search results from organic-like results to a dedicated carousel, and the number of search engine results pages with videos increases significantly. This has unexpected impact on some e-commerce retailers, because videos showing up in carousel mean that the site no longer appears in the organic search results.
2018	July 9	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Mobile usability	Google finishes rolling out to all users the incorporation of mobile speed into its ranking of webpages. The update affects only extremely slow webpages, and thus does not affect the majority of webpages.
2019	May 7	Search algorithm update, user experience			Google announces feature to be integrated into Google search that utilizes Google Lens and augmented reality. Google Lens adds new features like visual language translation of signs, audio reading of text, video demonstrations of recipes seen in magazines and scanning restaurant menus to show the most popular dishes. Also, Google Assistant is upgraded to be 10-times faster in responding to spoken requests. The company also introduces a newly designed Android Auto dashboard to make the in-car platform easier to use without distracting drivers.
2019	July 26	Analytics			Google announces addition of "AMP On Image Result", a new search area with aim at allowing publishers to view their traffic data from AMP in Google Images in a Search Console’s performance report for Google Images.
2018	August 1	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Core	Google rolls out a core algorithm update dubbed "Medic" by SEO observers. The algorithm largely affects your money or your life (YMYL) sites, in particular health/medical websites, with some sites seeing significant improvements and others seeing significant declines.
2019	April 5 and April 7	Search algorithm update	Indexing	Bug fix	Due to a bug, Google seems to drop about 4% of pages from its search index on April 5 and April 7.
2019	August 1	Search algorithm update			"Featured snippets are surely one of the most useful features that Google added to its search engine in recent years. Today, the company announced that it has recently updated the algorithm that powers these snippets to prioritize more recent information."
2019	August 2	Competition			Google announces that, some time in 2020, it will make available a Choice Screen on Android devices that will allow users to select a search provider from among Google and three others. The three options shown are to be selected based on a per-country auction conducted periodically.
2019	August 14	Transparency	Leak of internal documents on how search works	Navboost	Project Veritas, a right-wing political advocacy group in the United States, receives leaked internal documents from former Google software engineer Zachary Vorhies. While Project Veritas frames the leak as evidence of Google's bias against conservatives, others studying the leaked documents do not find such evidence. However, the leaked documents do contain some information on Navboost, Google's click feedback system, that generates some discussion at the time, though it would get way more attention in 2023 and 2024.
2019	September 5				"Google has added TV and movie recommendations to its search app in an attempt to solve the increasingly tricky problem of knowing what to watch." "Google on Thursday said it wants to make it easier for people to find shows and movies on its search engine. If you type in a phrase like "good show to watch," the Google app will let you open up a new feature to swipe left or right on show recommendations (yes, like a dating app)."
2019	September 9	Tools for websites	Private communication between websites and Google	Google Search Console	Google announces shut down of its old Search Console.
2019	September 10	Tools for websites	Indexing	Markup syntax	Google announces two new link attributes, sponsored and ugc, that are treated by Google as hints and may be used to replace nofollow in some cases.
2019	September 20	Analytics			Google adds new structured data report, allowing site owners to quickly check whether breadcrumb markup has been implemented correctly.
2019	September 23	Analytics			Google announces update in its Search Console, giving it the ability to return fresher data in the Search Performance report. "The Performance report helps webmasters and site owners better understand how their site performs on Google search".
2019	October	Search algorithm update	Understanding query intent	BERT	Google introduces the BERT search algorithm. BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is an open-sourced technique for natural language understanding aimed at improving the search engine’s understanding of queries — particularly longer spoken or written ones. The algorithm is expected to change results rankings for up to one in 10 queries.
2019	October	Userbase			As of date, Google search controls 88.3% of the search market in the United States.
2019	October 28	Search algorithm update	Indexing		Google announces that Search would stop supporting Adobe Flash by the end of the year. In web pages with Flash content, Google would ignore the Flash content. Search would also stop indexing standalone SWF files.
2019	November 14				Google Search launches a new feature that lets users check their pronunciation of unfamiliar words with the help of machine learning.
2019	November 26				Google Search introduces new features: automatic updations of listings on Google My Business and local language support on the shopping experience.
2019	December 5				"Google Search to Integrate Package Tracking" "A good example of this is the track package feature, a feature that incorporates a lot of different companies that you can check out and make sure that you are able to track the package that is shipping the product that you have purchased from said company." "This feature is going to be integrated into Google search, which means that now there will be a card below the search bar that can be used to find specific tracking details. All you would have to do is enter the company name followed by “package tracking”. For example, if the product you have purchased is from Amazon then your search query is going to be “Amazon package tracking”."
2019	December 5	Transparency	Quality raters guidelines		Google updates its search quality evaluator guidelines. The revisions emphasized diversity, impartiality and pertained to language referring to users."
2019	December 9	Search algorithm update	Understanding query intent	BERT	Google announces that its natural language processing algorithm BERT would be released in over 70 languages globally. Until then, the algorithm was only applied to featured snippets in languages other than English.
2019	December 10	Analytics			"Google has this week launched a new listing of the top 100 product trends in a range of categories based on Google search volume increases over the past year. Called the Google Shopping 100, the data collection has its own mini-site and provides some interesting, and potentially valuable insight into what the key product and consumer trends were over the course of 2019."
2019	December 16				Google Search and Google Maps introduce the ability to order food in Australia. Customers can order from fast food chains including Domino's Pizza, Boost Juice, Chatime, Guzman y Gomez, Pizza Hut and Grill’d, as well as local restaurants and cafes via HeyYou.
2019	December 17	Analytics			Google announces that fresher Discover data is now available within Google Search Console Performance reports. This allows site owners view data as recent as less than a day old.
2019	December 27				Google search launches a 'Watchlist' service that lets users track shows and movies across platforms. The feature is only available on the Google app for Android and iOS.
2019	Year round				Google announces Disney Plus as its top trending search term of 2019.
2020	000000002024-04-23-0000April 23	Search algorithm update (presentation)			Google announces that it is starting the rollout of a feature that will tell the user if there aren't great matches for the search, potentially with suggestions for how to improve the search query.
2020	000000002024-10-20-0000October 20	Review			An article in the Washington Post talks about how Google Search has been getting worse. Three points are made: (1) increasing proliferation of ads, pushing organic results farther down the page (and a continued blending of ads into content making them visually harder to distinguish), (2) inaccurate featured snippets that might push a political agenda, and (3) promotion of Google's own products (such as Google Maps, YouTube, Google Flights) even when inferior to other products.
2021	000000002024-02-01-0000February 1	Insight			Google announces the launch of an "About this result" available for individual search results that provides more information about the source, including entity information on the source (similar to a knowledge panel), and whether the result is a search result or an ad. "About this result" would evolve in the coming months to include more information.
2021	000000002024-05-18-0000May 18	Search algorithm update	Understanding query intent	MUM	Google announces its Multitask Unified Model (MUM) tool, that uses transformers / neural nets to understand human language and other information such as audio and video. MUM's understanding of text uses the T5 text-to-text framework. The first real-world application of MUM, to COVID vaccine names, would be announced on June 29 as having been released.
2021	000000002024-06-08-0000June 8	Competition			Google removes the participation fee for search engines to be shown in its Android Choice Screen program in Europe, and increases the number of search engines listed from three to a higher number, with five on screen at a given time.
2021	000000002024-06-15-0000June 15	Analytics			Google announces the release of Search Console Insights, a tool that surfaces insights by joining data from Search Console and Google Analytics.
2021	000000002024-06-15-0000June 15  – end of August	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating bad user experiences (heavy content, slow content, bad user experience) (page experience)	The rollout of Google's "page experience on mobile" update happens during this period. The update is limited to mobile searches, and gives weight to a "page experience" factor that includes performance on core web vitals, mobile usability, security issues, whether the site is HTTPS, and ads experience.
2021	000000002024-06-01-0000June (around middle of the month)	User experience	Information in SERPs		Google starts testing a new feature that notifies searchers if the search results for the search query are changing rapidly; the idea is to warn users about stories that are actively evolving.
2021	000000002024-06-23-0000June 23, June 28	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google releases a two-part update to deal with spam; the first part is released on June 23 and the second part on June 28.
2021	000000002024-07-22-0000July 22	Transparency	Explanation of search results		Google announces that its "About this result" panel will now include reasons a particular search result was shown. Types of reasons spotted include: search terms that appear in the result, search terms related to your search, other websites with your search terms link to this result, this result has images related to your search, this result is in your language, this result is relevant for searches in your region.
2022	000000002024-02-22-0000February 22  – 000000002024-03-03-0000March 3	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating bad user experiences (heavy content, slow content, bad user experience) (page experience)	As previously announced on November 4, 2021, Google executes on the rollout of using page experience as a ranking factor on desktop during this period. Page experience on desktop includes all the core web vitals as well as all the other page experience signals on mobile except mobile-friendliness.
2022	000000002024-08-25-0000August 25  – 000000002024-09-09-0000September 9	Search algorithm update	Ranking	Combating low-quality content and bad SEO tactics	Google releases a "helpful content" update that is intended to demote content that is written primarily for search engines, and promote content that it deems to be helpful to humans. The determination of whether content is helpful is done through machine learning, and validated via quality raters.
2022	000000002024-12-15-0000December 15	Transparency	Quality raters guidelines		Google releases an update to its quality raters guidelines (QRG) with a major change: it replaces E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) with E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). The newly added E is experience, which Google clarifies to mean first-hand experience, such as "actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced". Google explains how the relative importance of experience and expertise can depend on context: "For example, if you're looking for information on how to correctly fill out your tax returns, that's probably a situation where you want to see content produced by an expert in the field of accounting. But if you're looking for reviews of a tax preparation software, you might be looking for a different kind of information—maybe it's a forum discussion from people who have experience with different services." SEOs review and comment on both E-E-A-T and other aspects of the updated guidelines.
2023	000000002024-05-25-0000May 25	Search algorithm update	Presentation	AI overviews (Search Generative Experience)	Google officially launches (in beta, to only select users) the Search Generative Experience (SGE) that integrates text from a generative model into search results (in the form of AI overviews at the top of search results; thes would later be named "AI Overviews"). This launch comes about six months after the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI had raised the profile of generative models, apparently inducing Google to accelerate its plans to add generative experience to search results. The feature had been annouced by Google at the Google I/O event on May 10.
2023	000000002024-10-18-0000October 18	Transparency	Testimony on how search works	Core (Navboost, Glue, Tangram, RankBrain, RankEmbed BERT, DeepRank (with an emphasis in all of these on the role of click feedback))	Pandu Nayak, Vice President of Search at Google, who works on various aspects of search quality, gives testimony in United States v. Google. Analysis of the testimony by AJ Kohn, published on November 16, highlights the importance of feedback data from users (what they click on in the search results) for training the algorithm -- both in terms of the direct feedback for specific results clicked on, and in terms of training data for the models so that they can learn the general features of results users click on. The testimony goes over various subsystems of Google's core systems (these are the subsystems that get updated as part of "core updates"). The testimony calls Navboost (Google's click feedback signal that keeps track of what search result the user clicks on and whether they navigate back quickly) one of Google's strongest ranking signals and mentions it 54 times. The testimony also reveals that Navboost click data is now preserved for 13 months (it used to be 18 months back in 2017). Glue is described as the equivalent of Navboost for results other than web results. Tangram is described as the equivalent system for other search features. RankBrain is described as the algorithm used to finally rank within the top 20 to 30 results, as it is expensive to run on a much larger dataset; it is also trained on click and query data. RankEmbed BERT and DeepRank complement and support RankBrain. The testimony also covers Information Satisfaction (IS) scores and the use of interleaving for A/B testing (where results from different algorithms are interleaved together in the same set of search results). The testimony as well as Kohn's analysis are linked and discussed further in Search Engine Land, with focus on slightly different parts.
2024	000000002024-03-12-0000March 12 (original commit), May / June (wider awareness)	Transparency	Leak of internal documents on how search works	Core (Navboost and others) and many other facets	A commit made (seemingly accidentally) by a code bot to a public GitHub repository includes a bunch of internal documentation related to Google Search. On May 5, an anonymous source shares the commit with Rand Fishkin, founder and CEO of SparkToro. Fishkin vets the documents by speaking with three Googlers, two of whom confirm that the leak looks legitimate. Fishkin and Mike King study the leak together, and on May 27, they publish their separate analyses of the leak, both of them highlighting the importance of Google's click feedback systems including Navboost. On May 29, Google confirms the leak, but advises caution in interpreting it given that the information may be outdated and out-of-context: "We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information. We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation."

List of search updates made in later years

Some of these search updates would clutter the full timeline, and many of them have specialized pieces of information that are brought out more effectively in a more customized table structure. We cover these search updates in this section.

Core updates starting 2019

Google uses the shorthand "core updates" for what it describes as broad updates to its search algorithms, that are not targeted at a specific use case but change the core systems used within search. For such updates, Google says that websites have nothing in particular to "fix" and should just work on general best practices and creating great content.

A few notes:

• Starting 2019, Google has pushed the naming convention where an update is named based on the month and year it started rolling out. For instance, the update that rolled out from June 3, 2019 to June 8, 2019 is the June 2019 core update. The update that rolled out from May 25, 2022 to June 9, 2022 is termed the May 2022 core update based on the month when it started rolling out. The SEO community has adopted this convention. This convention also makes sense in light of the fact (discussed in a later bullet point) that Google doesn't reveal any other details of the core update, so it's hard to give a more semantically meaningful name.
• Google has been getting better over time in terms of communicating core updates.
  • Historically, Google would often either fail to confirm core updates or confirm then only after the fact.
  • Starting in 2019, Google has been more proactive about announcing core updates, initially via the Search Liaison Twitter handle (@searcliaison) once the update starts (and sometimes even prior to it). The account used for later announcements was the Google Search Central Twitter handle (@googlesearchc). By 2022, the announcement of core updates was now happening on the Google Search Central blog, with an update to the blog post indicating the completion of the rollout.
  • By 2021, Google was also usually announcing the end of rollout of each core update, generally through a reply message to the Twitter (now X) message where it had announced the original rollout.
  • By September 2022, Google had made available a search status history page that covers all officially announced Google algorithm updates, including all core updates, going back to January 2020. This includes the start date and duration of each update.
  • Starting 2023, Google has been providing the duration of updates at a granularity of hours, for instance "13 days, 7 hours" reflecting the fact that the Google Search Status dashboard is now updated close to real-time to reflect the status of search updates.
• Google rarely reveals details of the kinds of changes made in its core updates, which is consistent with Google's view that websites have nothing to "fix" in response to these updates. Google does not even provide insight into how big an update is, how it relates to previous updates, and what parts of the rollout period are expected to see the most flux.
  • However, Google has confirmed one important tidbit: that it has multiple core systems, and that different core updates may touch on different core systems. For instance, Google revealed that its October 2023 and November 2023 core updates were for different core systems.
• A note on the duration calculation and its relationship to start and end dates: generally, based on the timing of announcement, it seems that Google starts and ends its updates during US daytime hours (generally working hours or close). Therefore, the difference between the end and start date is a rough estimate of the duration in days. Had the updates started early in the morning and ended late at night, the duration could be rounded to one more than the difference of dates, and if it were the other way around, the duration could be rounded to one less. Fortunately, the narrow time-of-day range means that the duration is relatively easy to interpret.
• While there is a lot of variation from update to update, the general trend has been for core updates to get bigger in terms of the overall flux they create, and also for them to have a longer rollout period (this can be seen by how the "Duration in days" column is generally increasing as we go down the table). The longer rollout period means that core updates can have much greater overall flux while still having comparable peak volatility.
• In the absence of clear guidance from Google, SEO commentators and data providers collect and publish their own data. For each core update, Search Engine Land generally does a roundup post collating what different data providers are expected. Data providers often draw different conclusions as the use different methologies and have different sets of search queries and domains that they monitor. However, aggregating the information from data providers as well as SEO chatter generally provides a decent picture of (a) when in the rollout period the flux in results was greatest, (b) roughly how this update compares in magnitude to other updates. In some cases, there are also insights into what categories are most affected, or what kinds of domains have gained or lost traction. For instance, some updates tend to help reference websites, while others tend to hurt reference websites.

Start date	End date	Duration in days	Duration in days plus hours (only available 2023 onward)	SEO consensus on when the peak effect was seen (if there is consensus) (absolute date)	SEO consensus on when the peak effect was seen (day index, starting with 1 for the start date of the update)	Strength and characteristics of the update (based on commentary by data providers and SEOs)	Overlapping updates	Other notes
000000002019-03-12-0000March 12, 2019	000000002019-03-12-0000March 12, 2019	1		000000002019-03-12-0000March 12, 2019	1	SEO chatter suggests the update is targeted at YMYL sites.	N/A	Google confirms the update on Twitter via the official @searchliaison handle, claims that the algorithm is a broad core algorithm update and not targeted at any category, and argues for calling the update a core update rather than giving it another name, given that it targets the core search algorithm and is not tied to a specific facet (such as speed or spam).
000000002019-06-03-0000June 3, 2019	000000002019-06-08-0000June 8, 2019	5				SEO chatter suggests that a wider range of domains is affected than with previous core updates; some suggest a revert of March changes, with some health domains seeing a comeback.	Diversity update (2019-06-04 to 2019-06-06)	The update is pre-announced by Google on June 2 by the @searchliaison Twitter account via a tweet, a day before it started; both the start and end are announced via tweets; in fact, the update is announced one day prior to its start.
000000002019-09-24-0000September 24, 2019	000000002019-09-27-0000September 27, 2019	3				SEO chatter and data provider analysis suggests a strong effect within the YMYL category, with potential reversal of some changes with the last two 2019 core updates, but not as much overall volatility as the previous updates.	N/A	The end date is approximate as Google doesn't officially clarify the end time.
000000002020-01-13-0000January 13, 2020	000000002020-01-16-0000January 16, 2020	3				SEO chatter suggests that this is a huge update, with a big impact on YMYL sites.	N/A	At the time, the end date is framed as "approximate"; it is the date that Google reports being "mostly done" with the update, while saying that the full rollout may take up to two weeks. However, the Google Search Status dashboard does end up going with this end date and duration as part of the official record.
000000002020-05-04-0000May 4, 2020	000000002020-05-18-0000May 18, 2020	14				SEO chatter suggests that this is a "monster" of an update, even bigger than the January 2020 update.	N/A	This is one of the first times that the end of a core update is officially announced via the @searchliaison Twitter account; the past few times, the end date was only provided approximately or in terms of when the update is "mostly done". The rollout duration for this update (at 14 days) is much higher than the duration for the previous updates based on the more approximate methods.
000000002020-12-03-0000December 3, 2020	000000002020-12-16-0000December 16, 2020	13		000000002020-12-04-0000December 4, 2020	2	SEO commentators consider this update to be big, even bigger than the previous (May 2020) update, which was already bigger than preceding updates.	N/A	No official end date seems to be provided at the time, but the Goole Search Status history shows a duration of 13 days.
000000002021-06-02-0000June 2, 2021	000000002021-06-12-0000June 12, 2021	10		000000002021-06-04-0000June 4, 2021 to 000000002021-06-06-0000June 6, 2021	3 to 5	This is the first of a series of two core updates, with the second one in July 2021. SEO commentators find the effects of this update spread out over time, with the bulk of the effect from June 4 to June 6. The majority view among SEOs is that this is a smaller update than the December 2020 update, but some data providers and SEO analysts consider it a bigger update.	N/A, but quickly followed by spam updates and the page experience update
000000002021-07-01-0000July 1, 2021	000000002021-07-12-0000July 12, 2021	11		000000002021-07-02-0000July 2, 2021	2	This is the second of a series of two core updates, with the first update being in June 2021. SEO commentators note that the update propagated quickly with the effects beginning to be seen shortly after Google's announcement of the rollout, in contrast with the June update that started a little later and had a longer period of increased volatility. Overall, SEO commentators and data providers consider the July 2021 core update to be smaller than the June 2021 core update.	page experience update rolling out from mid-June to late August
000000002021-11-17-0000November 17, 2021	000000002021-11-30-0000November 30, 2021	13		000000002021-11-18-0000November 18, 2021	2	SEO companies generally find that the bulk of the impact of the update is within its first 24 hours, unlike some past core algorithm updates for which the high rankings flux continued for a few days.	N/A, but immediately followed by the product reviews update
000000002022-05-25-0000May 25, 2022	000000002022-06-09-0000June 9, 2022	15		000000002022-05-26-0000May 26, 2022	2	According to Search Engine Land, the update "was significant and hit fast" based on volatility-tracking tools. According to an article in Search Engine Journal, the winners include big e-commerce brands (such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy) and video sites (such as YouTube, TikTok, Disney Plus, Hulu, and Twitch) while the losers include news and media publishers and reference websites. New SERP features related to visual SERPs are also spotted.	N/A
000000002022-09-12-0000September 12, 2022	000000002022-09-26-0000September 26, 2022	14		000000002022-09-13-0000September 13, 2022	2	According to Search Engine Land, the update "hit fast but was less significant than previous updates" based on volatility-tracking tools; Semrush has a similar assessment.	product reviews update on 2022-09-20 while this core update was still rolling out (though after the bulk of its impact)
000000002023-03-15-0000March 15, 2023	000000002023-03-28-0000March 28, 2023	13	13 days, 7 hours	000000002023-03-16-0000March 16, 2023	2	SEO data providers have varying takes on the volatility of the update, with Semrush finding it to be more volatile and impactful than the September 2022 update, and RankRanger finding it to be comparably volatile.	N/A
000000002023-08-22-0000August 22, 2023	000000002023-09-07-0000September 7, 2023	16	16 days, 3 hours	000000002023-08-25-0000August 25, 2023	4	Both Semrush and RankRanger consider this a high-volatility update, whereas Sistrix calls it a "quiet" update. August 25 is singled out as a high-volatility day by multiple data providers as well as SEO commentators, but unlike some other core updates, this core update also seems to have had high volatility in the middle and end parts according to some of the data providers.	N/A
000000002023-10-05-0000October 5, 2023	000000002023-10-19-0000October 19, 2023	14	13 days, 23 hours	000000002023-10-10-0000October 10, 2023	6	Confusingly, a spam update is released around the same time, from October 4 to October 10. The overall volatility appears to peak on October 10 according to multiple data providers (but the contributions of the core update versus the spam update are unclear). This update has a few high-volatility days but is otherwise calm, unlike the August 2023 update that was high-volatility throughout. Sistrix notes that one category of established sites that was hit harder was reference sites.	spam update (2023-10-04 to 2023-10-10)
000000002023-11-02-0000November 2, 2023	000000002023-11-28-0000November 28, 2023	26	25 days, 21 hours			Data providers suggest that this update had higher overall volatility than the October 2023, and more days of increased volatility (i.e., a more spread-out update than the October 2023 update, and similar to the August 2023 update in that respect).	product reviews update (2023-11-08 to 2023-12-07)	In Q&A published along with the start of the update, Google says: "We have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month's core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month."
000000002024-03-05-0000March 5, 2024	000000002024-04-26-0000April 26, 2024	45				The long rollout duration of the update, as well as its overlap with Google's spam update (starting on the same day and rolling out over two weeks) makes this update much harder for SEOs and data providers to study. Overall, SEOs and data providers agree that the combined effect of the core update and the spam update is massive, particularly in terms of eliminating a bunch of sites completely (specifically, sites Google deems as spam, AI-generated, error-prone, and overly focused on search engines rather than humans), and massively switching around the rankings in the bottom half of the SERPs.	spam update (2024-03-05 to 2024-03-19)	In a very uncharacteristic move, Google has two blog posts describing its goals with this core update (and the concurrent spam update), namely: "This update involves refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people. This could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries." Starting with this core update, helpful content updates become part of core updates.
000000002024-08-15-0000August 15, 2024	000000002024-09-03-0000September 3, 2024	19	19 days, 4 hours			Data providers consider this update to be more volatile on a per-day basis than the March 2024 update, but given the shorter duration, the overall change is lower than (but still comparable to) the March 2024 update.	ranking issue from 2024-08-15 to 2024-08-20, overlapping with the initial rollout of the core update	Uncharacteristically, Google provides some context on its goals with the core update: "This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search. This latest update takes into account the feedback we've heard from some creators and others over the past few months. As always, we aim to connect people with a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users' searches. This is an area we'll continue to address in future updates. This update also aims to better capture improvements that sites may have made, so we can continue to show the best of the web."

Numerical and visual data

Mentions on Google Scholar

The following table summarizes per-year mentions on Google Scholar as of May 31, 2021.

Year	Google Search
1997	261,000
1998	342,000
1999	383,000
2000	467,000
2001	490,000
2002	546,000
2003	567,000
2004	595,000
2005	643,000
2006	664,000
2007	697,000
2008	679,000
2009	720,000
2010	730,000
2011	728,000
2012	674,000
2013	726,000
2014	690,000
2015	665,000
2016	602,000
2017	505,000
2018	366,000
2019	238,000
2020	120,000

Google Trends

The image below shows Google Trends data for Google Search (Topic) from January 2004 to February 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.

Google Ngram Viewer

The chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for Google Search from 1997 to 2019.

Wikipedia Views

The chart below shows pageviews of the English Wikipedia article Google Search on desktop from December 2007, and on mobile-web, desktop-spider,mobile-web-spider and mobile app, from July 2015; to January 2021.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The timeline was originally written by Vipul on Wikipedia at Timeline of Google Search. It was subsequently expanded by both Vipul and Sebastian.

What the timeline is still missing

• Speed and index size for search queries:
  • https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/digital-transformation/the-google-gospel-of-speed-urs-hoelzle/
  • https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Google-still-display-the-search-time-in-the-results-page
  • https://searchengineland.com/google-hides-search-results-count-under-tools-section-440299
• Environmental cost of search
  • https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much (linked from next point as well)
  • https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much and linked stuff
• Join and leave dates, and key contributions and philosophy, of: Marissa Mayer, Krishna Bharat (no leave date), Amit Singhal (leave date covered)
• Evolution of "I'm Feeling Lucky"
• The ChatGPT effect
• Let me Google that for you
• Google as a verb, trademark considerations
• Legal and monopoly concerns
• Google/Wikipedia relationship
• Google/Reddit relationship (And also cover launch of Reddit)
• Google/Twitter relationship

Big picture stuff:

• Breakdown of the different phases of Google updates
• Internet and world trends: size of WWW, computing speed, number of users searching, computing efficiency, environmental concerns

See also

• Timeline of web search engines
• Timeline of search engine optimization