# Reviews update

Category: [Google Updates & Algorithms](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/google-updates-algorithms/) › [Historical updates & events](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/google-updates-algorithms/historical-updates/) · Also known as: product reviews update, Google reviews system · Historical

The **reviews update** (first called product reviews update) was a series of announced changes to Google's reviews system, which rewards reviews and recommendations with insightful analysis and original research. In SEO it has nothing to do with star ratings on Google Maps or Trustpilot.

## What does the reviews system evaluate?

Google says the system looks at first-party standalone content such as articles and blog posts that give a recommendation, opinion or analysis. This covers single-item reviews, head-to-head comparisons and ranked lists, about products, services, media or places. It does not evaluate reviews that visitors post in a product's review section.

The system mainly works at page level, and sites with large amounts of review content can be assessed more broadly. Google lists eleven supported languages, including German and English.

The first product reviews update came in April 2021 for English. The April 2023 update (April 12 to 25, 2023 according to the status dashboard) expanded the scope beyond products to services and other topics. The status dashboard lists updates through November 2023, which started on November 8, 2023. Google then said the system is improved at a regular and ongoing pace and stopped posting updates. Today Google still lists the reviews system as an active system in its guide to ranking systems.

## Example

A comparison of robot vacuums with own measurements, photos and the downsides of each model matches what Google describes as the target. A list that copies manufacturer text matches it less (an illustration, not a Google rule).

## At a glance

- **Type:** Update to the reviews system (first “product reviews update”)
- **Started:** April 8, 2021 (English-language reviews only)
- **Expansion:** April 12–25, 2023 (expanded beyond products, “reviews update”)
- **Confirmed by:** yes, Search Central Blog and Status Dashboard
- **Status:** historical; the reviews system is listed as current in the guide
- **Docs:** [Google Search Status Dashboard: Ranking](https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history)

Last checked: October 8, 2026

## Google ranking systems 2010–2024

- **June 8, 2010:** Google announces the completion of Caffeine, its new web indexing system. Google says it delivers 50 percent fresher results than the previous index. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html))
- **February 24, 2011:** Google announces a ranking change against low-quality and copied content that noticeably affects 11.8% of queries. Google later refers to the system by its nickname “Panda”. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html))
- **November 3, 2011:** Google improves how it decides when to favour recent results. According to Google the change affects roughly 35 percent of searches and builds on Caffeine. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html))
- **January 19, 2012:** Google launches a change that looks at page layout. Pages with little content and many ads above the fold may rank lower. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement))
- **April 24, 2012:** Google announces a change against webspam, later nicknamed “Penguin”. It affects about 3.1% of English queries and roughly 3% of German queries. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality))
- **August 2013:** Hummingbird, which Google describes as a major improvement to its overall ranking systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **2015:** Panda becomes part of the core ranking systems. Google now lists it among its retired systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **2015:** Google launches RankBrain, the first deep learning system used in Search. It relates the words in a query to real-world concepts. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/how-ai-powers-great-search-results/))
- **April 21, 2015:** Google starts rolling out the mobile-friendly update, boosting mobile-friendly pages in mobile search results. The industry unofficially calls it “Mobilegeddon”. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update))
- **September 23, 2016:** Penguin becomes part of the core algorithm and now works in real time. Before that, the list of affected sites was only refreshed periodically. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2016/09/penguin-is-now-part-of-our-core))
- **2018:** Google introduces neural matching. The system helps relate queries to pages through underlying concepts. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/how-ai-powers-great-search-results/))
- **2018:** Launch of SpamBrain, Google’s AI-based spam prevention system. Google says it identified nearly six times more spam sites in 2021 than in 2020. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/04/webspam-report-2021))
- **October 25, 2019:** Google applies BERT to ranking and featured snippets. At launch it affects about one in ten English searches in the US. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/search-language-understanding-bert/))
- **October 15, 2020:** Google presents passage ranking, which can assess individual passages of a page for a query. Google expects it to improve 7 percent of queries. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/search-on/))
- **April 8, 2021:** First product reviews update. It rewards in-depth product reviews and initially covers English-language reviews only. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/product-reviews-update))
- **May 18, 2021:** Google introduces MUM, a model trained across 75 languages. Google calls it 1,000 times more powerful than BERT. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/introducing-mum/))
- **July 26, 2021:** First link spam update. It aims to identify and nullify link spam across multiple languages and rolls out over two weeks. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/07/link-tagging-and-link-spam-update))
- **August 25 to September 9, 2022:** With the helpful content update, Google aims to show more original, helpful content written for people. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/sbKc4YSptrSxcUZFDKwU))
- **December 5, 2022 to January 12, 2023:** December 2022 helpful content update. Google says it improves the classifier and works globally in all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/XMdX5PmbMvKW4fv3CRvn))
- **April 12 to April 25, 2023:** The product reviews update becomes the reviews update. Google says it now covers reviews of products, services and other things. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN8iR))
- **September 14 to September 28, 2023:** September 2023 helpful content update. Google says it improves the classifier again. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/53diuQvcEsgzqXTPBb8p))
- **November 8 to December 7, 2023:** November 2023 reviews update. As the reviews system is now improved at a regular pace, Google no longer posts future updates on the Status Dashboard. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VqRTcmyQCwfpuYeaVNfn))
- **March 2024:** The helpful content system becomes part of the core ranking systems. Google now lists it among its retired systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **March 5, 2024:** Three new spam policies against expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. The March 2024 spam update launches the same day. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies))
- **May 5, 2024:** The site reputation abuse policy takes effect. Google had given site owners time to prepare since March. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies))
- **August 5, 2024:** In the US antitrust case against Google, the court describes Navboost as a signal that memorises which documents users click for a query. This is a court document, not a Google publication. ([Source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1033.0_1.pdf))
- **November 19, 2024:** Google tightens the site reputation abuse policy. First-party involvement does not change the assessment when third-party content exploits the host site’s ranking signals. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/11/site-reputation-abuse))

## Related terms

- [Google algorithm update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/google-algorithm-update/index.md)
- [Google core update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/google-core-update/index.md)
- [Helpful content update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/helpful-content-update/index.md)
- [Review schema](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/review-schema/index.md)

## Sources

- [Google Search's reviews system – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/reviews-system)
- [What creators should know about Google's April 2021 product reviews update – Google Search Central Blog](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/product-reviews-update)
- [November 2023 reviews update – Google Search Status Dashboard](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VqRTcmyQCwfpuYeaVNfn)
- [A guide to Google Search ranking systems – Google Search Central (last updated 2025-12-10)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide)
- [Google Search Status Dashboard, Ranking](https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history)

---

Last updated: October 8, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/reviews-update/