Google Update Risk Checker documentation

The Google Update Risk Checker estimates how exposed a website is to future Google updates. It is built on every confirmed Google ranking update since 2011, and each of its checks comes from what one or more of those updates targeted. This guide explains every part of it.

Open the Google Update Risk Checker

What it does

Most people only learn how a Google update treated their site after the traffic has moved. This tool works the other way round. It looks for the patterns that past updates have rewarded and demoted, so you can improve before the next one.

You get:

• one risk score from 0 to 100, with a plain verdict;
• a score for each of six risk areas;
• your exposure to each type of update: core, helpful content, spam, link spam, reviews and page experience;
• a ranked fix list, each item linked to the Google updates behind it;
• an optional traffic comparison with your own Search Console data.

Quick start

1. Open the Google Update Risk Checker.
2. Enter your home page address, for example example.com, and press Check risk.
3. Wait 10 to 40 seconds while it reads up to ten pages.
4. Read your score, then work through the top fixes.
5. Optional: drop your Search Console export onto the traffic section to see how past updates affected you.

Press Copy share link to send the report to your team. Shared links run a fresh check when they are opened, because no report is ever saved.

The Google updates it is built on

The tool keeps a list of every confirmed Google ranking update since 2011. From November 2021 the list comes from Google's Search Status Dashboard, and the server refreshes it from Google's live feed every few hours. Earlier updates come from Google's own announcements on Search Central.

The Google Algorithm Sensor shows the complete list.

Every check explained

Helpful, original content

• Thin pages: content pages with under 250 words of main content. Fails when half or more are thin.
• Pages that repeat each other: pairs of pages sharing over 60 percent of their text.
• Repeated titles or descriptions across the pages checked.
• Mass-produced or AI-generated copy: the AI Website Detector engine scores the home page and one article. 70 or more fails, 55 to 69 is a warning.
• Many pages on the same day: 40 or more sitemap pages (and over 15 percent) dated the same day. Sitemaps record the last change, so a site move can cause this too. It is only ever a warning.
• Main heading: pages without an H1.

Experience, expertise and trust

• About page, contact details (a contact page plus an email, phone or WhatsApp link) and privacy or terms pages.
• Named authors and dates on articles (bylines, author schema, published or modified dates).
• Expertise on health or money topics: when a site focuses on health, finance or legal topics, it looks for credentials, reviewers and authors.
• Organization or Person structured data.

Spam policies

• Keyword stuffing: one two-word phrase making up over 3.5 percent of a page's words (and used 12 or more times).
• Hidden text: blocks of over 60 words hidden with inline CSS.
• Doorway pages: 10 or more pages following one template, such as one per city. 25 or more fails.
• Off-topic sections such as coupons, casino or payday pages on a site about something else (site reputation abuse).
• Blocked home page: a noindex tag or a robots.txt rule that blocks the whole site.

Page experience

• HTTPS and insecure files on secure pages.
• Mobile setup: a responsive viewport tag.
• Pop-ups: known pop-up and exit-intent tools.
• Advertising: 6 or more ad placements on one page is a warning, 12 or more fails.
• Page weight: HTML over 900 KB, over 60 scripts, or many third-party script hosts.
• Layout shift: most images without width and height.

Links

• Affiliate or paid links without rel="sponsored" or nofollow.
• Very many outbound links: over 80 on one page is a warning, over 150 fails.
• Sitewide footer links to four or more other websites (social profiles excluded).

Reviews

• First-hand evidence: review or comparison pages need signs of real testing (pros and cons, measurements, "we tested") and at least 600 words.
• Affiliate density on review pages.

How the score works

Each check passes, partly passes (a warning) or fails, and carries a weight from 3 to 10 for how much it has mattered in past updates. Checks that do not apply, such as reviews on a site without reviews, are left out.

Bands: under 20 low, 20 to 39 moderate, 40 to 59 high, 60 or more very high.

Comparing your traffic with Google updates

In Google Search Console, open Performance, choose Last 16 months, then Export → Download CSV. Drop the zip, or the Dates.csv file inside it, onto the traffic section.

The chart shows your daily clicks with every update marked. For each update in your date range, the tool compares your average daily clicks in the 28 days before it started with the 28 days after it finished (or after the settling period). A change of 20 percent or more is marked as a likely effect.

The file is read in your browser only. It is never uploaded or stored.

Limits, privacy and fair use

• It is a risk estimate from public guidelines and up to ten of your pages, not a prediction. Nobody can say exactly how a future update will treat a site.
• It reads public pages only, respects size and time limits, and skips login, cart and admin pages.
• Page experience is estimated from code. Real Core Web Vitals come from Search Console or PageSpeed Insights.
• Each visitor can run 6 new scans every 10 minutes. Nothing is saved: each result is sent to your browser and then forgotten.
• It is an independent tool, not made by or affiliated with Google.

Troubleshooting

All tool documentation