2014 Most Important Updates
Pirate 2.0 — October 21, 2014
More than two years after the original DMCA/"Pirate" update, Google launched another update to combat software and
digital media piracy. This update was highly targeted, causing dramatic drops in ranking to a relatively small
group of sites.
Penguin 3.0 — October 17, 2014
More than a year after the previous Penguin update (2.1), Google launched a Penguin refresh. This update appeared
to be smaller than expected (<1% of US/English queries affected) and was probably data-only (not a new Penguin
algorithm). The timing of the update was unclear, especially internationally, and Google claimed it was spread out
over "weeks".
"In The News" Box — October 1, 2014
Google made what looked like a display change to News-box results, but later announced that they had expanded news
links to a much larger set of potential sites. The presence of news results in SERPs also spiked, and major news
sites reported substantial traffic changes.
Panda 4.1 (#27) — September 23, 2014
Google announced a significant Panda update, which included an algorithmic component. They estimated the impact at
3-5% of queries affected. Given the "slow rollout," the exact timing was unclear.
Authorship Removed — August 28, 2014
Following up on the June 28th drop of authorship photos, Google announced that they would be completely removing
authorship markup (and would no longer process it). By the next morning, authorship bylines had disappeared from
all SERPs.
HTTPS/SSL Update — August 6, 2014
After months of speculation, Google announced that they would be giving preference to secure sites, and that
adding encryption would provide a "lightweight" rankings boost. They stressed that this boost would start out
small, but implied it might increase if the changed proved to be positive.
Pigeon — July 24, 2014
Google shook the local SEO world with an update that dramatically altered some local results and modified how they
handle and interpret location cues. Google claimed that Pigeon created closer ties between the local algorithm and
core algorithm(s).
Authorship Photo Drop — June 28, 2014
John Mueller made a surprise announcement (on June 25th) that Google would be dropping all authorship photos from
SERPs (after heavily promoting authorship as a connection to Google+). The drop was complete around June 28th.
Payday Loan 3.0 — June 12, 2014
Less than a month after the Payday Loan 2.0 anti-spam update, Google launched another major iteration. Official
statements suggested that 2.0 targeted specific sites, while 3.0 targeted spammy queries.
Panda 4.0 (#26) — May 19, 2014
Google confirmed a major Panda update that likely included both an algorithm update and a data refresh.
Officially, about 7.5% of English-language queries were affected. While Matt Cutts said it began rolling out on
5/20, our data strongly suggests it started earlier.
Payday Loan 2.0 — May 16, 2014
Just prior to Panda 4.0, Google updated it's "payday loan" algorithm, which targets especially spammy queries. The
exact date of the roll-out was unclear (Google said "this past weekend" on 5/20), and the back-to-back updates
made the details difficult to sort out.
Unnamed Update — March 24, 2014
Major algorithm flux trackers and webmaster chatter spiked around 3/24-3/25, and some speculated that the new,
"softer" Panda update had arrived. Many sites reported ranking changes, but this update was never confirmed by
Google.
Page Layout #3 — February 6, 2014
Google "refreshed" their page layout algorithm, also known as "top heavy". Originally launched in January 2012,
the page layout algorithm penalizes sites with too many ads above the fold.
Thanks