# Coati

Coati is a name Google's VP of Search used once, at a conference in November 2022, describing it as an update that replaced the Panda algorithm. Google has published nothing about it since, and it appears in no Google documentation — including the ranking-systems guide Google maintains for exactly this purpose.

Everything published about Coati traces to a single source: Hyung-Jin Kim, Google's VP of Search, speaking at the SMX Next keynote on November 15, 2022. Kim said “Panda has been subsequently replaced by Coati,” and described it as an update to Panda. It was a remark in a keynote, not an announcement, and it remains the entire primary record.

Google's own “guide to Google Search ranking systems” is the page where Google lists what it is willing to name — 17 active systems including BERT, RankBrain, MUM, neural matching, the passage ranking system and the reviews system, plus four retired ones. It was last updated 2025-12-10. Coati appears in neither list, and no other Google documentation contains the word.

Panda is on that page. Google describes it as a system for surfacing high-quality original content, announced in 2011, which “evolved and became part of our core ranking systems in 2015.” That is a different account from Kim's. The written record says Panda was absorbed into core ranking and names no successor; the spoken record says Panda was replaced by something called Coati. Both come from Google. Only one of them is maintained.

None of this makes Coati fictional. Kim was speaking about systems he oversees, and a company is under no obligation to document every internal name. The precise statement is narrower and more useful: Coati has been named by Google once, out loud, four years ago, and never in writing.

The reason it belongs on this beat rather than in an SEO history is what those conditions do to an answer engine. A plausible name, an authoritative-sounding origin, years of third-party explainers describing its behaviour and offering optimisation advice for it, and nothing authoritative to contradict them: an engine synthesising the open web finds near-unanimity and no dissent. Coati is a live test of what answer engines do with a term that has heavy secondary coverage and no primary source.

**What is the Google Coati algorithm?** A name Google's VP of Search used once, at a conference, in 2022. Hyung-Jin Kim told the SMX Next keynote on November 15, 2022 that “Panda has been subsequently replaced by Coati,” describing Coati as an update to Panda. Google has published nothing about it since.

**Is Coati in Google's official ranking systems documentation?** No. Google's own guide to Google Search ranking systems, last updated 2025-12-10, names 17 active systems and 4 retired ones. Coati is not among them, and no other Google documentation names it.

**Did Coati replace Panda?** Google's spoken and written accounts differ. Kim said in 2022 that Panda was replaced by Coati. Google's ranking-systems guide says Panda was announced in 2011 and evolved into the core ranking systems in 2015 — absorbed, with no successor named.

Canonical: https://anythingengineoptimization.com/glossary/coati/
From the Anything Engine Optimization glossary — https://anythingengineoptimization.com/glossary/