Google’s ranking systems aren’t a single algorithm but many systems working together, and Google changes them constantly. It reports making thousands of changes to Search every year. Nearly all are small and go unnoticed. A handful each year are big enough that Google announces them, and those are what people usually mean by “an algorithm update”.
Types of announced updates
- Core updates: broad changes to how Google assesses content and relevance overall. Several per year, rolling out over about two weeks.
- Spam updates: improvements to systems that detect spam, such as link spam, scaled content abuse and other policy violations.
- Specific system updates: changes to particular systems, like reviews or site reputation. Some have since been folded into core ranking. The helpful content system, for example, became part of core ranking systems in March 2024.
Google lists announced updates on its Search Status Dashboard, with start and end dates.
Why it matters
Updates can move traffic sharply, up or down. Brightside Dental might see its blog traffic fall 30% during a core update while its location pages hold steady, because Google re-evaluated which general health articles deserve to rank, favoring larger medical sites with stronger expertise signals.
Updates rarely target an individual site. They change how Google weighs signals across the whole web, so your position can change because competitors’ pages were re-evaluated, not just yours.
How to tell if an update affected you
- Check Google’s Search Status Dashboard for updates around the date your traffic changed.
- Compare Search Console clicks and impressions before and after, for a week or more after the rollout finishes.
- Look at which pages and queries changed, not just the total.
- Rule out other causes: technical problems, seasonality, tracking changes, a site migration.
Rank tracking data helps here, because it shows exactly when positions moved for specific keywords.
What to do after a drop
- Don’t make panicked changes during the rollout.
- Review the affected pages honestly. Are they the most helpful result? Is the expertise clear? Are they current?
- Read Google’s guidance for that update. For spam updates, check whether anything breaks the spam policies.
- Improve, then wait. Recovery after a core update often only shows in a later core update.
Common mistakes
- Blaming every traffic change on an update
- Deleting large amounts of content in a panic
- Trusting “update recovery” services promising quick fixes
- Assuming the cause is technical when it’s about content quality, or the reverse
RankThat’s Rank Tracker records daily or weekly positions, so you can line up ranking changes against update dates. Sites that rely on black hat SEO tactics are the most exposed to spam updates.