Has anyone else noticed that weve been seeing fewer algorithm update announcements from Google in recent years? That Googles PR campaigns about changing search results has been quieting down?

If you have, rest assured: youre not crazy.

I scrolled through Mozs Google Algorithm Change History recently and graphed the number of changes by year (an imperfect study, probably, but a pretty good general standard).

Since a dramatic peak in 2012, the number of update announcements has been dropping. (That low number for 2015 is my own projection, based on what weve seen so far and on what youre about to read.)

Why?

I dont think that Google will ever kick back, put up their collective feet, and stop updating. So why the drop?

First, Google doesnt make those big announcements just to ensure sure that all their friends in the SEO community are on the same happy page. They announce algorithm updates because they want to change SEO behavior.

The war on links is a great example. Google doesnt want its bots fooled by spammy backlinks, so along comes Penguin. They could have released the algorithm change, and all its subsequent updates, without a word; but, in addition to actually devaluing bad links, they also want black hat SEOs to just stop it already.

The rest is here:

They Fooled Us All: Why Google May No Longer Announce Major Algorithm Updates