Seowolf’s SEO-SERPS.INFO Google algorithm updates, SEO news & AI search intelligence

Google Algorithm Update History

Every ranking update and Search incident Google has confirmed on its own Search Status Dashboard, with the exact start and end timestamps Google published and the rollout duration calculated from them. Google reports when an update began and when it finished, but never how long it took — that column is computed here.

Is Google rolling out an update right now?

No. Google has no confirmed ranking update in progress.

The most recent was the September 2026 spam update, which finished on 8 October 2026 — 8 days ago — after a rollout of 13 days, 15h.

From Google's Search Status Dashboard, last checked · how long updates usually take

Was Google updating on a given day?

Enter the date of a traffic change and see which confirmed updates were rolling out at the time.

Clear

24 July 2014: 12 events were active.

  • Local update Pigeon day 1 — still running · started 24 Jul 00:00 UTC
  • Quality update Panda 4.0 day 67 — still running · started 19 May 00:00 UTC
  • Core update Hummingbird day 302 — still running · started 26 Sep 00:00 UTC
  • Spam update Payday Loan day 409 — still running · started 11 Jun 00:00 UTC
  • Link spam update Penguin 2.0 day 429 — still running · started 22 May 00:00 UTC
  • Spam update Exact Match Domain (EMD) day 665 — still running · started 28 Sep 00:00 UTC
  • Spam update Pirate day 723 — still running · started 1 Aug 00:00 UTC
  • Link spam update Penguin day 822 — still running · started 24 Apr 00:00 UTC
  • Local update Venice day 905 — still running · started 1 Feb 00:00 UTC
  • Ranking update Freshness update day 995 — still running · started 3 Nov 00:00 UTC
  • Quality update Panda 2.0 day 1201 — still running · started 11 Apr 00:00 UTC
  • Quality update Panda day 1247 — still running · started 24 Feb 00:00 UTC
61 Named updates on record
35 Core updates
19 Spam updates
22.0d Average core rollout
10.3d Average spam rollout
All events Core updates Spam updates Other events

2026

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
September 2026 spam update source ↗ Spam update 16:15 UTC 08:00 UTC 13 days, 15h Ranking
August 2026 spam update source ↗ Spam update 16:27 UTC 08:49 UTC 2 days, 16h Ranking
June 2026 spam update source ↗ Spam update 16:00 UTC 17:00 UTC 2 days, 1h Ranking
May 2026 core update source ↗ Core update 15:40 UTC 12:40 UTC 11 days, 21h Ranking
March 2026 core update source ↗ Core update 09:00 UTC 13:00 UTC 12 days, 4h Ranking
March 2026 spam update source ↗ Spam update 19:00 UTC 14:30 UTC 19h 30m Ranking
Serving was experiencing an issue Serving 03:55 UTC 04:10 UTC 15 min Serving
February 2026 Discover update source ↗ Discover update 17:00 UTC 10:00 UTC 21 days, 17h Ranking

2025

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
December 2025 core update source ↗ Core update 17:25 UTC 19:00 UTC 18 days, 1h Ranking
Serving is experiencing an ongoing issue Serving 20:00 UTC 20:40 UTC 3 days Serving
August 2025 spam update source ↗ Spam update 16:00 UTC 07:00 UTC 26 days, 15h Ranking
June 2025 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
March 2025 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2024

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
December 2024 spam update Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
December 2024 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
November 2024 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
August 2024 core update Google said it aimed to reward sites hurt by the 2022 helpful content system. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
June 2024 spam update Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
March 2024 core update Ran 45 days — the longest core update rollout on record. Announced alongside new spam policies including scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. Core update 46 days Ranking
March 2024 spam update Spam update 16 days Ranking

2023

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
November 2023 reviews update Google said this would be the last separately announced reviews update. Reviews update not recorded not recorded Ranking
November 2023 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
October 2023 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
October 2023 spam update Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
September 2023 helpful content update Helpful content not recorded not recorded Ranking
August 2023 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
April 2023 reviews update Reviews update not recorded not recorded Ranking
March 2023 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2022

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
December 2022 link spam update Introduced SpamBrain-based link neutralisation. Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
December 2022 helpful content update Helpful content not recorded not recorded Ranking
October 2022 spam update Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
September 2022 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Helpful content update First site-wide signal aimed at content written for engines rather than people. Helpful content not recorded not recorded Ranking
May 2022 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2021

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
November 2021 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Link spam update Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
July 2021 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Page experience update Core Web Vitals folded into ranking. Rolled out gradually to the end of August. Ranking signal not recorded not recorded Ranking
June 2021 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Product reviews update The first of the product review series. Reviews update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Passage ranking Ranking update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2020

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
December 2020 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
May 2020 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
January 2020 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2019

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
BERT Natural-language understanding applied to queries and passages. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
September 2019 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Site diversity update Limited repeated results from one domain. Ranking update not recorded not recorded Ranking
June 2019 core update The first update Google pre-announced by name. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
March 2019 core update Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2018

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
August 2018 core update ("Medic") "Medic" is an industry nickname. Health and finance sites were hit hardest, which is where the name came from. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Speed update Page speed became a mobile ranking factor. Ranking signal not recorded not recorded Ranking
Mobile-first indexing rollout Indexing change not recorded not recorded Ranking

2017

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Fred nickname A nickname, never an official name. Hit ad-heavy, thin-content sites. Quality update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Intrusive interstitials penalty Demoted pages where mobile content was obscured by pop-ups. Ranking signal not recorded not recorded Ranking

2016

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Penguin 4.0 Penguin became real-time and part of the core algorithm. Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Possum nickname Local update month only not recorded not recorded Ranking

2015

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
RankBrain Machine learning applied to interpreting unfamiliar queries. Revealed publicly in October; in use earlier. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Panda 4.2 Rolled out slowly over months. Quality update not recorded not recorded Ranking
The Quality Update ("Phantom 2") nickname Google confirmed a core quality change after the industry noticed it. Quality update month only not recorded not recorded Ranking
Mobile-friendly update ("Mobilegeddon") Mobile friendliness became a ranking signal on mobile. Ranking signal not recorded not recorded Ranking

2014

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Penguin 3.0 Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
HTTPS as a ranking signal source ↗ Ranking signal not recorded not recorded Ranking
Pigeon nickname Substantial rework of local results. Local update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Panda 4.0 Quality update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2013

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Hummingbird Rewrite of the core ranking engine toward query meaning. Announced in September; Google said it had been live for roughly a month. Core update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Payday Loan Aimed at heavily spammed query spaces. Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Penguin 2.0 Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking

2012

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Exact Match Domain (EMD) Stopped low-quality sites ranking on keyword-stuffed domains. Spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Pirate nickname Demoted sites with repeated copyright removal notices. Spam update month only not recorded not recorded Ranking
Penguin Targeted link schemes and over-optimised anchor text. Link spam update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Venice nickname Localised ordinary results by the searcher's location. Local update month only not recorded not recorded Ranking

2011

Update Type Started Finished Rollout Affected
Freshness update Favoured recency for queries where it mattered. Ranking update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Panda 2.0 Extended Panda to all English queries. Quality update not recorded not recorded Ranking
Panda source ↗ First large-scale attack on thin and low-value content. Quality update not recorded not recorded Ranking

Take this with you

Drop the update windows straight into a client deck, a Looker Studio annotation layer or your own dashboard — rather than rebuilding the table by hand.

Download CSV Download JSON Updates-only RSS Calendar (.ics) Chart annotations Rollout statistics

Show the live status on your own site

A small badge that always shows whether a Google update is rolling out. It updates itself; paste it once.

Google update status badge

Understanding Google updates

The three kinds, and why the difference matters

Core updates

Broad changes to how Google's ranking systems assess content overall. They are not penalties. Google's own position is that there is nothing specific to fix — a site can drop without having done anything against the rules, simply because the systems now weigh things differently.

Rankings move in both directions, and a drop is often a competitor rising rather than you falling.

Spam updates

These are about violations — link schemes, scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse. If a spam update hits you, something on the site is likely breaching a stated policy, and the fix is to identify and remove it.

The practical difference from a core update: here there usually is something specific to find.

Incidents

Bugs rather than intentional changes — indexing failures, serving faults, ranking systems misbehaving. Google fixes them and rankings usually return by themselves.

Worth recognising, because acting on a temporary bug is how people break working sites.

Algorithmic versus manual

Everything on this page is algorithmic. A manual action is different: a human reviewer at Google penalised your site, and it appears in Search Console under Security & Manual Actions with a reconsideration process.

If Search Console shows nothing there, no amount of reading this page will change that — you are looking at an algorithmic movement, and there is no appeal, only improvement.

What to do when one lands

  1. Confirm it is actually Google. Use the date lookup above. If nothing was rolling out, look at your own deploys, robots directives, server errors and migrations first.
  2. Wait for the rollout to finish. This is the single most common mistake. Rankings swing hard mid-rollout and settle afterwards. Core updates in this archive have averaged 22.0 days, spam updates 10.3 days. Changes made on day three get judged against data that no longer applies by day twelve.
  3. Compare clean windows. Measure the period before the start date against the period after the end date — not against the middle.
  4. Segment before concluding. A sitewide average hides almost everything useful. Split by page type, query intent and landing page. Most "sitewide drops" turn out to be one template or one query class.
  5. For a core update, improve rather than hunt. Google publishes questions to assess content quality against; they are a better use of a week than searching for a technical smoking gun that is not there.
  6. Expect recovery to take a while. Meaningful movement after a core update generally arrives with a later core update, not days after a fix.

How to read the table above

  • Rollout is computed here from Google's published start and end times. Google does not publish the elapsed figure anywhere.
  • Affected shows which Search system Google flagged — Ranking, Indexing or Serving. An indexing incident and a ranking update call for completely different responses.
  • “Not recorded” means Google never published a completion date, which is normal for anything before the Search Status Dashboard existed. It does not mean still running.
  • “Nickname” marks names the industry invented. Medic, Fred, Mobilegeddon and Phantom were never Google's terms — useful to know before quoting one to a client.

New to this? The site guide covers filtering, search operators and how to track a specific client or vertical.

About this record

Every row comes from Google's Search Status Dashboard, which is where Google confirms the start and end of ranking updates. Times are as Google published them, in UTC. The Rollout column is calculated from those two timestamps — Google does not publish it.

This table has two sources, and they are not equally precise. Rows from roughly mid-2025 onward come from Google's status API and carry exact timestamps to the minute. Earlier rows are compiled from the public record, because Google's API only ever exposes its ten most recent incidents — everything older had to be assembled by hand.

Compiled rows show the announced start date and no clock time. Where only the month is reliably established the cell says month only rather than inventing a day. Rollout end dates are mostly absent because Google did not publish them before the status dashboard existed; those read not recorded, never “ongoing”, which would be plainly false for a 2014 update.

Names marked nickname were coined by the industry, not by Google — Medic, Fred, Mobilegeddon and Phantom were never official. Most update histories print them alongside Google's own names with nothing to distinguish the two.

Spotted an error? Corrections are genuinely welcome at contact [at] seo-serps.info.

74 events on record · checked against Google's status API every 15 minutes