https://seomadman.com Every major Google ranking update since 2003: dates, how Google confirmed it, what it targeted and what site owners should do. en https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2018-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2018-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google released a broad core algorithm update on Monday 16 April 2018 and confirmed it on Twitter four days later. It gave no completion date. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2021-product-reviews-update https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2021-product-reviews-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's first product reviews update launched on 8 April 2021 for English reviews and finished on 22 April. What it rewarded and what to do now. updates ecommerce-seo content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2023-reviews-update https://seomadman.com/updates/april-2023-reviews-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's April 2023 reviews update ran 13 days from 12 to 25 April 2023 and widened the reviews system beyond products to services and things. updates core-updates ecommerce-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2018-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2018-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's August 2018 broad core update was confirmed on 1 August 2018 and complete by 8 August. The industry nicknamed it Medic; Google said it was global. updates core-updates content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2022-helpful-content-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2022-helpful-content-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's first helpful content update ran 15 days from 25 August to 9 September 2022, adding a site-wide signal against unhelpful content. updates content-strategy core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2023-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2023-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's August 2023 core update ran 16 days from 22 August to 7 September 2023, announced on the Search Status Dashboard without a blog post. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2024-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2024-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's August 2024 core update ran 19 days from 15 August to 3 September 2024 and aimed to reward useful content, including small sites. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2025-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2025-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's August 2025 spam update ran just under 27 days from 26 August to 22 September 2025 and applied globally and to all languages. updates content-strategy link-building https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2026-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/august-2026-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's August 2026 spam update ran from 18 to 21 August 2026, about three days, globally and in all languages. Dates and what to do. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/austin-update-2004 https://seomadman.com/updates/austin-update-2004 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Austin was an unconfirmed Google ranking shake-up first reported on 24 January 2004. Google never confirmed it; WebmasterWorld named it. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/bert-2019 https://seomadman.com/updates/bert-2019 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google announced BERT on 25 October 2019. It first helped with 1 in 10 US English searches and by 2020 was used in almost every English query. updates core-updates ai-search https://seomadman.com/updates/big-daddy-update-2005 https://seomadman.com/updates/big-daddy-update-2005 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Big Daddy was Google's 2005 to 2006 crawling and indexing upgrade. Matt Cutts named it and said it was fully deployed by 29 March 2006. updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/bourbon-update-2005 https://seomadman.com/updates/bourbon-update-2005 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Bourbon was a staged 2005 Google update that a Google employee described in forum posts as 3.5 improvements in search quality. updates core-updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/brand-update-2010 https://seomadman.com/updates/brand-update-2010 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez On 20 August 2010 Google began showing more results from a single site when a query signalled strong interest in that domain. What it changed. updates serp-features https://seomadman.com/updates/caffeine-indexing-system-2010 https://seomadman.com/updates/caffeine-indexing-system-2010 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google announced Caffeine complete on 8 June 2010: a new web index Google said gave 50 percent fresher results. It was an indexing change. updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2017-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2017-updates Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google confirmed several minor search improvements in mid-December 2017, not one update. Search Engine Roundtable nicknamed the changes Maccabees. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2020-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2020-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2020 core update ran from 3 December to 16 December 2020, seven months after the May 2020 core update. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2021-product-reviews-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2021-product-reviews-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2021 product reviews update ran 20 days, 1 to 21 December 2021, and added two new best practices for review content. updates ecommerce-seo content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2022-helpful-content-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2022-helpful-content-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2022 helpful content update ran 38 days from 5 December 2022 to 12 January 2023, improved the classifier and covered all languages. updates content-strategy core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2022-link-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2022-link-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2022 link spam update ran 29 days from 14 December 2022 to 12 January 2023 and used SpamBrain to neutralize unnatural links. updates link-building https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2024-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2024-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2024 core update ran 6 days from 12 to 18 December 2024, a week after the November core update and just before a spam update. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2024-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2024-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2024 spam update ran 7 days from 19 to 26 December 2024, starting the day after the December 2024 core update finished. updates content-strategy link-building https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2025-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/december-2025-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's December 2025 core update ran 18 days, from 11 to 29 December 2025. Dates, what Google said, and how to check your own data. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/deepfake-ranking-update-2024 https://seomadman.com/updates/deepfake-ranking-update-2024 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez On 31 July 2024 Google updated its ranking systems to demote explicit non-consensual fake content and sites with many removals for it. updates content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/dewey-update-2008 https://seomadman.com/updates/dewey-update-2008 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Dewey was a Google ranking shuffle first reported on 31 March 2008. Google never confirmed a change; the industry named it after a feedback keyword. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/exact-match-domain-update-2012 https://seomadman.com/updates/exact-match-domain-update-2012 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's exact match domain update of September 2012 reduced low-quality exact-match domains in results, affecting 0.6% of English-US queries. updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/featured-snippet-deduplication-2020 https://seomadman.com/updates/featured-snippet-deduplication-2020 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez From 22 January 2020, Google stopped repeating a page in the first page of results once it was shown as the featured snippet. updates serp-features https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2022-page-experience-update-desktop https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2022-page-experience-update-desktop Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's page experience update for desktop ran 9 days, 22 February to 3 March 2022, bringing mobile's page experience signals to desktop ranking. updates page-speed technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2023-product-reviews-update https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2023-product-reviews-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's February 2023 product reviews update ran 14 days from 21 February to 7 March 2023 in 11 languages. Dates, scope and review guidance. updates ecommerce-seo content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2026-discover-update https://seomadman.com/updates/february-2026-discover-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's February 2026 Discover core update ran about 22 days, 5 to 27 February 2026, for English-language users in the US. What changed and what to do. updates serp-features content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/florida-update-2003 https://seomadman.com/updates/florida-update-2003 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Florida was an unconfirmed Google ranking shake-up first reported on 14 November 2003. Google never confirmed it; the industry named it. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/fred-update-2017 https://seomadman.com/updates/fred-update-2017 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Fred is the name attached to a March 2017 Google ranking change. Google acknowledged an update but never detailed it; here is what is on record. updates content-strategy core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/freshness-update-2011 https://seomadman.com/updates/freshness-update-2011 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's freshness update of 3 November 2011 changed when recent results rank. Google said it noticeably impacted 6 to 10% of searches. updates content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/google-september-2026-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/google-september-2026-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's September 2026 spam update began on 24 September 2026, globally and in all languages, and is still rolling out. Dates and what to do. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/hawk-update-2017 https://seomadman.com/updates/hawk-update-2017 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Hawk is the industry name for a local search change observed on 22 August 2017 that loosened Possum's proximity filter. Google never confirmed it. updates local-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/https-ranking-signal-2014 https://seomadman.com/updates/https-ranking-signal-2014 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez On 7 August 2014 Google made HTTPS a lightweight ranking signal, affecting fewer than 1% of global queries. What it changed and what applies today. updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/hummingbird-2013 https://seomadman.com/updates/hummingbird-2013 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Hummingbird was Google's rebuilt ranking algorithm of August 2013, revealed on 26 September 2013 and aimed at the meaning of whole queries. updates content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/intrusive-interstitials-update-2017 https://seomadman.com/updates/intrusive-interstitials-update-2017 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez From 10 January 2017, Google said mobile pages whose content is hidden behind intrusive interstitials may not rank as high. Here is what applies today. updates technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/jagger-update-2005 https://seomadman.com/updates/jagger-update-2005 Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Jagger was a three-part Google update from October 2005 that Matt Cutts tracked on his blog. The industry named it; Google asked for spam reports. updates link-building core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/january-2016-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/january-2016-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google confirmed on 12 January 2016 that ranking changes seen that weekend were a core algorithm update, not Penguin. It gave the update no name. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/january-2020-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/january-2020-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's January 2020 core update went live on 13 January 2020. Google said on 16 January it was mostly done, but never gave a finish date. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2021-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2021-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's July 2021 core update ran from 1 to 12 July 2021 and delivered the improvements Google held back from the June 2021 core update. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2021-link-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2021-link-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's link spam update ran from 26 July to 24 August 2021, nullifying link spam across languages. What Google said about affiliate and guest post links. updates link-building https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2022-product-reviews-update https://seomadman.com/updates/july-2022-product-reviews-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's July 2022 product reviews update ran 6 days, 27 July to 2 August 2022, for English-language product reviews. What Google confirmed. updates ecommerce-seo content-strategy https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2019-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2019-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2019 core update ran from 3 to 8 June 2019. It was the first core update Google announced before it went live. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2021-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2021-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2021 core update ran from 2 to 12 June 2021 as the first half of a two-part release completed by the July 2021 core update. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2021-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2021-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2021 spam update ran in two one-day parts, on 23 and 28 June 2021. What Google confirmed about it and what its spam policies say today. updates content-strategy technical-seo https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2024-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2024-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2024 spam update ran 7 days from 20 to 27 June 2024. Google gave no figures; sites that dropped should review its spam policies. updates content-strategy link-building https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2025-core-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2025-core-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2025 core update ran just under 17 days from 30 June to 17 July 2025, inside the up-to-three-weeks estimate Google gave at launch. updates core-updates https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2026-spam-update https://seomadman.com/updates/june-2026-spam-update Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Adam Hafez Google's June 2026 spam update ran from 24 to 26 June 2026, about two days, globally and in all languages. Dates and what to do. updates core-updates