Google Algorithm Tracker

It's a change to the systems Google uses to rank pages. Google makes small changes almost every day and doesn't announce most of them. The ones in this tracker are the bigger, named updates that Google confirmed or that moved rankings for a lot of sites.

A core update is a broad change to how Google ranks pages across all sites and topics. It doesn't target one kind of problem the way a spam update does. Google runs several a year and posts each one on its Search Status Dashboard with a start and end date.

Open the Performance report in Google Search Console and look at clicks and impressions around the rollout dates of each update. If traffic dropped or rose inside a rollout window, and the change shows up across many pages, that update is the likely cause. Use the year and type filters here to find what was rolling out at the time.

Most core updates take about two weeks. Spam updates are often done in a few days. Some run much longer, like the March 2024 core update, which took 45 days. Rankings can move up and down during the rollout, so wait until it finishes before you judge the result.

Dates from November 2021 on come from Google's Search Status Dashboard. Older dates come from Google's own announcements and from industry records that were widely reported. When only the month is known, we show the month instead of guessing a day.

Yes, but there is no quick fix. Google says a drop after a core update doesn't mean your site broke a rule, only that other pages now look more useful for those searches. Improving your content helps, and recoveries often show up during a later core update.