Google algorithm updates 2020 in review: Core updates, passage indexing and page experience Despite the pandemic, Google was busy working on changes to its search ranking algorithm — here is a summary review of those changes through 2020. Barry Schwartz on December 30, 2020 at 8:00 am More This year will forever be known as the year that brought introspection, slowed people down and had them focus less on business and more on family. But, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, business must go on, and so it did with SEO and Google’s numerous algorithm updates throughout the year. From core updates, to machine learning efforts with BERT, passage indexing (or is it passage ranking?), the upcoming Google Page Experience update and many unconfirmed changes — we would not call 2020 as a slow year for Google search algorithms.