This document provides a summary of major Google algorithm updates from 2011 to 2018, organized into 9 categories. It describes the purpose and impact of updates like Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, and Mobile-Friendly which aimed to improve search quality, reduce spam, understand user intent, and optimize the mobile experience. Major updates were often rolled out gradually over weeks or months to monitor effects. The introduction of RankBrain in 2015 represented a significant development with the integration of machine learning into Google's algorithms.

1. History of Google Algorithm Updates – From
SEO Perspective
People believe Google has made it tougher for people to rank their businesses,
but they have actually made it easier, even tough complicated than before.
Google algorithm updates have set filters for those for who was trying to fake
it, making it an honest competition, while promoting their own Adsense
business. Google is expected to roll out a new, and big update, very soon. It is
expected to be a very major update and will change how we browse the
internet.
Google updates it’s algorithm almost every single day. The major updates
though usually come in a month or two. Google categorizes its updates and
changes to make it easier to explain whenever they are rolled out. There’s a
major play of Adsense in all this, but let’s discuss it another time. We are here
today to make a quick list of SEO updates since Google started taking it
seriously.
For easier understanding, we will categorize Google algorithms updates and
put in them the updates date wise.

2. There are a total of 9 categories, so let’s get started with
Google algorithm updates
1. Panda
Google finally realized the need to keep the trash content away and releases a
new algorithm update called Panda/Farmer. As we said, the series of updates
were aimed at maintaining the quality of the content of websites appearing at
the top of search results.
February 23, 2011
On this day, the auspicious google algorithm update was first implemented. It
was reported that approximately 12% of all queries were impacted. Google
considerably de-ranked content farm websites which were just producing
irrelevant content for every niche and topping page ranking.
April 11, 2011
Generic improvements to the general google algorithm, it added and improved
upon factors which users directly reported, like blocking websites.
May 9, 2011
The industry first called this Panda 3.0, but Google clarified that it was just a
data refresh, as would be true for the 2.x updates to come.
June 21, 2011
Panda version 2.2 was finally acknowledged by Google, along with Google
continuing to take Panda further and beyond, impacting sites and data
worldwide.

3. July 23, 2011
The changes remained unannounced, so it wasn’t clear what exactly was
changed in this update.
August 12, 2011
Over 8 percent of queries were affected, Panda rolled out internationally. It
included complete support for English and all global language excluding
Chinese, Japenese, Korean.
September 28, 2011
Even though exact details of the update weren’t disclosed, many sites reported
huge loses because of it.
October 19, 2011
Some new minor additions to the algorithm, which affected how would the
Panda update now affect Google search. Also, Google started taking collected
previous data of far has Panda taken it and impacted different websites.
November 18, 2011
No official announcement for Panda 3.0, but a statement saying there will be
flux upcoming. The update was called 3.1 and was going to be followed by
minor and frequent updates.
January 18, 2012
No typical algorithm changes but a mild data change was reported by Google
for Panda 3.2

4. February 27, 2012
A Post flux update, but yet again, nothing much was said by Google for the
same.
March 12, 2012
Over 1.6% of all searches were affected with the rollout of Panda 3.4, what
was new was Google took to Twitter to announce it to the public.
April 19, 2012
No high impact was reported, it was a fairly generic data update from Google.
April 27, 2012
No updates or details were provided, but it was believed the update was to
compliment Penguin, which was released just 3 days prior to this update.
June 8, 2012
Google claimed less than 1% searches were affected, however, ranking
fluctuation data suggested otherwise. This 3.7 update supposedly was much
more impactful than the last two updates.
June 25, 2012
Only data changes were made without making any changes to the actual
algorithm.

5. July 24, 2012
A Short term impact was made on the rankings, taking things back to normal in
a week’s time. Google claims about 1% of all searches were affected with
update 3.9
August 20, 2012
The new naming convention, update 3.9.1 was introduced due to the update
being minor and necessary before the upcoming Panda 4.0.
September 18, 2012
Moderate ranking flux was caused by this data only update, no changes in the
algorithm were made.
September 27, 2012

6. The highly impactful update overlapped with the EMD update. This Panda
update changed both the data and the algorithm to affect over 2.4% queries.
At this update, Google decided that there was a lot more to do before version
4, and so, started naming Panda updates by indexing. This being the 20th
Panda update, the further would be named as update 21 for panda then 22
and so on.
November 5, 2012
This was a small yet impactful update from Google, it was officially reported to
have affected over 1.1% of all English queries.
November 21, 2012
The 22nd Panda update was mostly data driven, but there was some activity
reported just before this update on 19th November.
December 21, 2012
A high impact Panda update since last 2 iterations, Google officially called it a
refresh and told it affected about 1.3% English queries.
January 22, 2013
The official statement says it affected 1.3%, the first update of 2013 was pretty
intense for the community.
March 14, 2013
The last manual update to the Panda, after this, all the hard work Google put in
it was going to be integrated into the core algorithm. The update was pre-
announced and was speculated to affect a lot of users at its roll out.

7. June 11, 2013
Matts Cutts clarifies a few things which were said previously. Panda wasn’t yet
been incorporated in the core algorithm, rather Google will start making slow
roll outs in over 10 days. The ever flux wasn’t happening just yet, but there
were new updates making way to the algorithm as a whole to dance.
July 18, 2013
Panda’s penalties were getting too harsh, Google rolled out Panda recovery to
make sure they don’t get too hard on the internet businesses.
May 19, 2014
Panda 4.0 was here, and it affected the English queries massively, over 7.5% of
all the queries. The speculation was being made that instead of slow rollouts,
this was an algorithm as well as data change update. While Matt Cutts claims it
started rolling out on 20/5, the web statics were showing it actually came out
earlier.
September 23, 2014
Given the slow rollouts, the exact date for Panda 4.1 can only be speculated.
The official news came on 25/9, but we firmly believe it was earlier than that.
This Google algorithm update made a huge impact by affecting over 3-5% of all
queries.
July 17, 2015
Major update to Panda was announced, Google called it a data-based update,
and told it will take months and more to completely roll out. The immediate

8. effect couldn’t be calculated and not much is know about its the actual overall
impact of Panda 4.2
January 11, 2016
Approximately 6 months after the last update and official announcement,
Google announced that Panda has now been included in its core algorithm for
page ranking. The changes made now will be subtle and won’t be announced
explicitly. In a way, Panda was now perfect to be used along with other
Google’s core algorithm factors, and won’t require many changes at all. Panda
was perfected to be, in a long span of so many years, Google said it will keep
working in its full potential.
2. Penguin
In the wake of spammers using their resources to promote thin content and
low-quality websites, Google came up with the Webspam update. The update
was decided to be called Penguin, Google just being Google. Over a series of
Google algorithm updates, Penguin took a real place in the core search
algorithm and eliminated a lot of spammers from Google’s search results.
April 24, 2012
When Penguin first came onto the surface, this was directly linked to the
increased problem of scammers using Black Hat SEO techniques to promote
websites with thin content and fooling Google. Penguin adjusted a lot of spam
factors, like keyword stuffing, and affected almost 3.1% of all English queries.
May 25, 2012

9. The first update to Penguin, Penguin 1.1 came out officially. Google announced
that just like Panda, Penguin’s main data would be maintained outside the main
search index. This obviously meant updates and optimization for Penguin.
October 5, 2012
Unlike Panda, Penguin’s updates weren’t going full swing. On this day, Google
made an announcement of a minor update along with telling the public a major
update is coming soon. Since this was a minor data update, it impacted only
0.3% of all search queries. This version had no name, the convention was
rebooted just like Panda.
May 22, 2013
After months and months of wait and speculations, Penguin 2.0 was finally
announced by Google. The widespread effect on the search result was not
announced, but it’s speculated that it affected a lot of web traffic by reducing
spamming considerably. The update was aimed at the page level to let Google
dig deeper into the SEO.
October 4, 2013
Minor update with data changes was release after a 4 and a half months of
wait. The algorithm wasn’t modified much in this one, and it was called to be
Penguin 2.1. Even though the update was minor, a lot of website owners
reported major loses after the update.
October 17, 2014
The update to Penguin came after a year and was yet a minor update according
to the impact it made. The Penguin refresh was now called Penguin 3.0, even
though no major changes were made to the algorithm. The time of arrival of

10. the algorithm remains unclear due to it’s spread taking weeks, according to
Google.
December 10, 2014
It was announced by Google that Penguin will be going on the path of an ever
flux, continuous, and no major announcements. All this happened with
speculations about Penguin 3.1 going over the roof. There was no update as
such and one thing was clear, Google’s Penguin was soon going to be included
in the core search algorithm.
September 23, 2016
2 Years of no updates on Penguin and then, Google finally comes up with a
major update which says Penguin will now be a part of the core algorithm.
Things were being perfected in the meantime, and now finally, Google
integrates it in the main algorithm for better.
Initial assessments weren’t possible due to the fact that the update was on a
slow roll out. The algorithm was now more gentle towards spammers and was
aimed at devaluing the bad backlinks instead of directly penalizing websites. In
the second phase, all penalties were taken off, it was speculated that the
update rollout took almost two complete weeks.
3. Pirate

12. Pirated content was getting problematic each day, the copyright holders were
furious and incurring huge loses. So, Google finally came up with an update to
ban pirated content in its search results. The update was called “Pirate” for
obvious reasons.
August 10, 2012
Google implements Pirate through DMCA’s list of repeat offenders and starts
heavily penalizing them. The update was said to be scheduled and wasn’t
effective immediately.
October 21, 2014
Pirate 2.0 was launched after almost 2 years of the first DMCA update, it was
aimed at taking down all websites offering pirated digital media and software.
The update was called off as a success with a lot of pirated site owners
reporting huge losses.
4. Hummingbird
Hummingbird was the next step for Google to take the search engine crown. It
was aimed at taking advantage of showing a result focused on the user’s actual
intent. Showing a side page for facts, or for recipes in case of food search,
added the much needed personal touch in every single search query.
August 20, 2013
Google announced a new update came a month ago on 26th September. They
said the new algorithm update was directly at core algorithm, unlike others
which were first perfected with a series of updates. The main changes in the
update were how about the semantics were searched in a query and the
knowledge base used by Google’s algorithm.

13. 5. Pigeon
This update was aimed at promoting local business to local users, a much-
needed update to the algorithm which was, to be honest, expected much
earlier from Google. This update helped everyone near you to be displayed as a
search result, which made complete sense as you need to find local shops/
restaurants and more on a daily basis.
Google was now working on a tighter grip on local search algorithms for tailor-
made results to the user, it also included major search improvements on google
maps.
July 24, 2014
Google made the perfect move by bridging the gap between it’s local and core
algorithm by releasing this update. The update was made directly on the
algorithm and the fluctuation was reported for as long as 8 weeks.
December 22, 2014
The algorithm was expanded from the US to other countries like the UK, CA,
and AUS. The slow rollout was due to the widespread effect of the update on
local searches.
6. Mobile friendly update
Mobile friendly updates were a special case in Google algorithm updates. They
weren’t aimed at search engine algorithm in general, but to maintain the
webpage quality in mobile phones. Mobile sites were back then not given
much attention, and given the wake of the smartphone era, this decision
became a necessity for Google. Best SEO services also started working
separately for mobile-friendly updates.

14. April 21, 2015
Google pre-announces an update specifically for mobile phones, it was dubbed
“Mobilegeddon”. It was focused on making a different ranking system for
mobile-friendly sites on mobile. The move was praised but the actual outcome
said otherwise, no hyper changed ranks were reported and things went
smooth.
May 12, 2016
More than a year after the first major update, Google made an announcement
that they are still working to make the mobile web better. For an even better
user experience on mobiles, a minor update was released to encourage more
websites to make mobile-friendly websites.
January 10, 2017
Google finally realized to limit ads on mobile phones, it was getting really
frustrating to see pop-ups and more and more tabs opening continuously.
Intrusive Interstitial Penalties was applied to such websites and advertisers,
this was in the wake of deteriorating user mobile experience. This was one of
the first updates about which Google sent out a statement 6 months prior, on
the day of update no major activity was reported and things went further
smoothly.
March 26, 2018
Google was going all in on the portables, with its update dubbed “Mobile first
index”. The update meant to bet big on mobile sites rather than desktop
websites, it meant the website would be first indexed on mobile and then on
desktop. No huge impact was reported and webmasters were notified directly
about the update.

15. July 9, 2018
A Mobile speed update was rolled out to accommodate phones running on
low-speed mobile data. Page speed was made a deciding factor for page
ranking in case of mobiles and Google specified it would only affect the
slowest of the mobile sites.
7. RankBrain
The RankBrain was a game changer for Google, they did what others only
dreamt about. For SEOs, things were only going to get harder, as the only way
to rank now was to follow the basics and working hard. The RankBrain is
Google’s machine learning algorithm made through all the data they have
collected since the beginning of their journey. The algorithm keeps on learning
through everything that’s happening on the search engine and moving ahead
to correctly decipher the meaning behind users queries.
October 26, 2015
A Huge algorithm update announcement shook the world, Google announced
the machine learning algorithm has been in work for months. It contributed to
be the 3rd most influential factor in page rankings and was continually
learning. Google took its time to announce after they actually ran the algorithm
for months as a test run.
8. Possum
Another update to Google’s local search algorithm, the one that hit some very
hard, and made some very happy. This update was aimed at improving
businesses that went unconsidered as they were outside city limits, even if just
by a few miles. Local web development companies also started working for
smaller businesses while putting SEO first.

16. Things were now focused on the users’ location, rather than the business’s
location. Things improved a lot by Possum, and maps were now implementing
the search algorithm much better for local businesses. It was reported that
around 60% of all local search results were affected because of Possum, which
is an impact, unlike any other update.
September 1, 2016
Even though no official announcement was made by Google, huge changes
were reported in local searches. It was also speculated that both inorganic and
organic results shook up with this unannounced update. It also led to the
closure of businesses which put up fake addresses in every city to improve
their presence.
9. Fred
Fred was another Google update which targeted sites with thin content by
changing the entire algorithm. This was Google’s answer to blogs who strived
on ads and affiliate marketing and had no relevant content on offer. They were
just like content farms, but the target was different this time around, and so
was Google’s approach to tackle it.
This update shook the results by storm, most thin content sites were now
nowhere to be found. Google also pushed hard on webmaster’s guidelines with
this update.
March 8, 2017
Google released an unannounced update, Garry Illeys called it ‘Fred’ jokingly.
No official announcements were made and the name was called off as a joke.
But the update was still very real, seeing the effect it had search results. It

17. made more and more people comply and follow Google’s guidelines for a better
experience for everyone.
Conclusion
Google has evolved from being a meager search engine to the best one out
there. Every single person relies on Google for an internet search, people now
give examples of Google as a synonym to internet search. Google has worked
very hard upon improving search results for general users while maintaining
free practices and quality content.
Things went from simple algorithms to a full-fledged machine learning
algorithm, which knows exactly what you’re looking for when you type those
words.
Overall, from an SEO perspective, Google has stayed true to what it stands for.
Even though Google’s main business is marketing and ads, they ensure the
organic search remains unaffected. That means if you don’t want to pay for ads,
and can maintain the quality, you can rank on top of all those webpages you’re
targeting.
Reference: https://semidotinfotech.com/blog/google-
algorithm-updates-history-from-seo-perspective/