Knowledge base v2.13.0 · Community edition · data through 2 October 2026
Topic · Serving and ranking
Google gave three reasons why Search changes: new content formats, the growing breadth of content and content issues such as spam, and every update shares the goal of satisfying users' information needs. Core updates are broad changes made several times a year and announced on the Search Status Dashboard (two in 2026 by 3 October, next to four spam updates); they do not target or punish sites, so a drop means other pages now do better and there is no 'recovery' in the penalty sense. Google advises looking at the whole site objectively, even asking someone outside the team to review it; its docs say improvements may take several months to register, sometimes only at the next core update, and Google estimated on Day 3 that a core update reaches a site within 2 to 4 weeks of its rollout and that recovery typically takes 3 to 6 months. Spam updates target spam only: recovering means removing the kind of spam Google described, and the benefit lost from spammy links in a link spam update cannot be regained. Older named updates now live inside the core systems: Google's ranking systems guide says Panda (2011) and Penguin (2012) became part of the core ranking systems in 2015 and 2016, and the helpful content system (2022) in March 2024. A spam update is a notable improvement to Google's constantly running spam systems such as SpamBrain, which Day 2 called central to Google's spam fighting; Google estimated that a spam update affects sites within 1-2 days of its rollout, and months for batch refreshes, and its spam updates page says a compliant site may improve over a period of months. On Day 2 a community speaker reminded attendees that features and spam improvements often reach some languages first: site names launched in select languages in 2022 and in all languages in September 2023, and the October 2023 spam update improved coverage for specific languages.
Things in this topic 5
Counts are claims that name the thing. All things
What to do
Google search features often launch in some languages or countries first and expand later (the presenter's example was site names, launched in several languages and then extended to all languages in 2023), so comparisons of performance across languages and countries should not assume a feature is live everywhere at once.
Speaker a second community speakerIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
Google's October 2023 spam update post (4 October 2023) says the update improved coverage in many languages and spam types, cleaning up spam reported in Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi, Chinese and other languages, particularly cloaking, hacked, auto-generated and scraped spam.
Publisher Search Central blog (4 October 2023)Annotates Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: Internationalisation
Google's site names were introduced on mobile results for select languages in October 2022, expanded to desktop in March 2023, and on 7 September 2023 became available in all languages where Google Search is available, on mobile and desktop.
Publisher Search Central blog (7 September 2023)Annotates Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: Internationalisation
Google's slide gave three reasons why Search changes: new content formats, the growing breadth of content on the web, and content issues such as spam.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Google's slide said the more people post on the internet, the more saturated topics become and the harder it gets to find the highest quality content, so Google might launch core updates to improve the quality and relevance of search results.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Google's slide said Google is not perfect and spammers find loopholes to make low-effort content rank high in Search, so Google might launch targeted algorithms for a more level playing field in its search results.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Google's 'Recoveries' slide said that to recover from a spam update a site should remove the kind of spam Google described in its blog announcements of the update.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byglossary term Spam update
Google's 'Recoveries' slide advised sites affected by a core update to keep doing a great job, look at what competitors are doing better and learn from sites that are doing better.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo
Google estimated that a core update affects a site within 2 to 4 weeks from the beginning of its rollout.
Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?Evidence slide photo, transcript
Recovery after a core update typically takes 3 to 6 months once the site has put in work to regain traffic, and up to 6 months to a year, until the next core update.
Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?Evidence slide photo, transcript
Google updates such as Panda and Penguin made Google steadily better at seeing past the facade of a site, a community speaker said.
Speaker Community speakersIn Day 3, 10:45 · Lightning session K: Facets of qualityEvidence transcript
Every kind of Search update, whether a feature launch, a core update or a spam update, has the same goal: satisfying users' information needs with better results.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Google stressed that core updates are not punitive: they are not meant to punish any site but to improve how results are surfaced.
“Core updates are not punitive.”
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Core update
Several times a year Google makes significant, broad changes to its search algorithms and systems, which it calls core updates.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Core update
Google announces core updates when they happen by posting them on the Google Search Status Dashboard.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Core update
Core updates do not target specific sites; they change how Google assesses certain properties of content.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Core update
A core update may reward pages that were previously under-rewarded, so when some pages go down after a core update, other pages must go up.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Pages that perform worse after a core update usually do not violate Google's spam policies; Google has changed, perhaps slightly, how it thinks about quality.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Google sometimes couples a core update with an update to its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
The purpose of core updates is to improve the quality and relevance of search results for users.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Answering the common question whether to fix individual pages or the whole site after a core update, Google advised taking a close look at the site as a whole and trying to be objective.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Because owners struggle to judge their own site objectively, the speaker suggested asking someone else to review the site after a core update drop.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
To improve a site after a core update, check whether users can complete their information journey on the site and ask users directly, for example with customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, then improve based on the answers.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Site owners should check whether the site overall, not just individual pages, delivers helpful, reliable, people-first content.
“you should check if your site overall, not just individual pages, is delivering content that's helpful, reliable, and people-first”
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
When spammers find loopholes that Google's systems miss, Google releases spam updates that change its systems to catch them.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Spam updates target only spam: they go after sites that churn out millions of low-quality pages to make money, very likely not the site owners and SEOs in the audience.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
The speaker declined to give a timeline for recovering from a spam update, saying the update had targeted spam.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
A ranking drop after a core update is not a penalty, so technically there is no recovery from a core update in the way there is after a spam update.
“technically, and from a purely technical perspective, there's no recovery, because you were not penalized”
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence slide photo, transcript
After a core update a site can win back some of its rankings by improving the site as a whole.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
A drop after a core update can simply mean that a competitor now does better because Google rethought how it assesses quality as a whole.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updatesEvidence transcript
Google's ranking systems guide lists Panda as a retired system: announced in 2011 to better ensure that high-quality and original content appears in search results, it became part of the core ranking systems in 2015.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 10:45 · Lightning session K: Facets of quality
Google's ranking systems guide lists Penguin as a retired system: announced in 2012 to combat link spam, it was integrated into the core ranking systems in 2016.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 10:45 · Lightning session K: Facets of quality
Google's ranking systems guide says the helpful content system, announced in 2022 as the Helpful Content Update to show original, helpful content written by people, for people, became part of the core ranking systems in March 2024.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 10:45 · Lightning session K: Facets of quality
As of 3 October 2026, the Ranking history of Google's Search Status Dashboard lists two core updates in 2026 (March and May) and four spam updates (March, June, August and September).
Publisher Google Search Status Dashboard (Ranking incident history)Annotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's 2019 post on core updates says Google tests any broad core update before it goes live, including feedback from its search quality raters, whose data is not used directly in ranking.
Publisher Search Central blog (1 August 2019)Annotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's core updates page recommends waiting at least a full week after a core update has finished rolling out before analysing Search Console data, then comparing that week with a week before the update started.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's core updates page says a small drop in position after a core update (for example from 2 to 4) needs no drastic action, while a large drop (for example from 4 to 29) calls for a deeper assessment.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's spam updates page says its automated spam detection systems run constantly, and a notable improvement to them, such as to the AI-based SpamBrain system, is called a spam update and listed with Google's ranking updates.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Used byglossary term Spam update
Google's spam updates page says that after a spam update, changes may help a site improve if Google's automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with its spam policies.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's spam updates page says that after a link spam update, fixing the site might not bring an improvement, because any ranking benefit the spammy links had generated is lost and cannot be regained.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's core updates page says improvements can take effect in a few days but may take several months for its systems to confirm that the site as a whole produces helpful content, sometimes only at the next core update.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Google's core updates page says Google also makes smaller core updates that are not announced, and these can also lift a site that has improved.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Of the two updates named on stage as letting Google see past a site's facade, only Panda targeted content quality; Penguin targeted link spam, and both have been part of Google's core ranking systems since 2015 and 2016, so neither runs as a separate system today.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 3, 10:45 · Lightning session K: Facets of quality
After a core update drop, plan a site-wide quality review instead of page-by-page fixes or a technical 'recovery': have someone outside the team assess the site, compare it with the pages that gained, and test whether users can finish their task, for example with short satisfaction surveys.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 3, 12:00 · What are quality updates
Set expectations for recovery work: a manual action can lift within weeks of a real clean-up, but recovery from a core update typically takes 3 to 6 months and may need the next core update, so do not judge quality work within the first weeks.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?
Google sometimes couples a core update with an update to its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Google's quality talk pointed to page 21 of the Search Quality Rater Guidelines for its definition of content quality by effort, originality, talent or skill and accuracy, noting that the document is updated from time to time.
Google's spam updates page says its automated spam detection systems run constantly, and a notable improvement to them, such as to the AI-based SpamBrain system, is called a spam update and listed with Google's ranking updates.
SpamBrain is central to Google's spam-fighting efforts and has been improved many times since its launch.
Recovery after a core update typically takes 3 to 6 months once the site has put in work to regain traffic, and up to 6 months to a year, until the next core update.
After a core update a site can win back some of its rankings by improving the site as a whole.
Google estimated that a spam update affects sites within 1-2 days of the rollout, 1-2 weeks for continuous processing (said on stage as 2 weeks on average) and months for batch refreshes.
When spammers find loopholes that Google's systems miss, Google releases spam updates that change its systems to catch them.