Google Publishes a Guide to Its Ranking Systems, Including the Ones It Retired

Google also lists the algorithms it no longer uses to rank search results.

Google has published a new help document covering the most “notable” Google ranking systems it has built over the years, including the ones currently used in Google Search and the ones that have been retired. It’s titled “A guide to Google Search ranking systems.”

The Ranking Systems Google Currently Uses

The guide describes the ranking systems Google Search uses today, with a short explanation of each. Here is the list of systems currently in use:

• BERT
• Crisis information systems
• Deduplication systems
• Exact match domain system
• Freshness systems
• Helpful content system
• Link analysis systems and PageRank
• Local news systems
• MUM
• Neural matching
• Original content systems
• Removal-based demotion systems, including legal removals and personal information removals
• Page experience system
• Passage ranking system
• Product reviews system
• RankBrain
• Reliable information systems
• Site diversity system
• Spam detection systems

The Ranking Systems Google Has Retired

The guide also names older ranking updates that are no longer used on their own or that have been folded into newer systems. For example, the page experience system now covers what the old page speed system did. The retired systems are:

• Hummingbird
• Mobile-friendly ranking system
• Page speed system
• Panda system
• Penguin system
• Secure sites system

Why This Matters

The list is a handy reference for knowing which major ranking systems are still active and which ones aren’t. It also shows how Google itself defines each system, how it’s used, and what it means for Google Search.

We’ve covered several of these systems as they launched, including Google’s BERT update, Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM), and the June 2019 site diversity update.

Where Things Stand in 2026

Google has kept the guide up to date since it was published. In 2023, it removed the page experience system from the list, explaining that page experience signals are weighed by its core ranking systems rather than by a standalone system. With the March 2024 core update, the helpful content system was also folded into Google’s core ranking systems. To see how those core systems change over time, read Google core updates explained.

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