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What is Google Phantom Update about?

Google's Phantom update was a sneaky change to the company's search algorithm that affected mostly informational sites like eHow, Quora, and HubPages. Many sites lost rankings while others jumped ahead, causing mass confusion among webmasters as Google originally denied a major update.

Google’s Phantom update is also known as Quality Update. After many reports of large-scale ranking changes, originally dubbed Phantom 2, Google on 2015, acknowledged a core algorithm change impacting "quality signals". Google Phantom 2 algorithm assesses content quality on a website. This update seems to have had a broad impact, but Google didn't reveal any specifics about the nature of the signals involved.

The Google Phantom update (or core algorithm update) is a change in the algorithms of the search engines which led to some major changes in the SERP positions of numerous websites. Google initially denied such changes but then confirmed the update after increased demands from experts and key media. Therefore, the update that was meant to address the quality of websites was called Phantom.