No they haven't. There's always been an initial 1 year cliff. This changed in the past year. Source: I joined google less than 6 years ago and had a 1 year cliff.
That's a very unusual deal. Most Google offers were (up until I think August/September 2017) structured as base + target % annual bonus + cash signing bonus with first/second paycheck (which you would need to pay back prorated if you left before a year, but this isn't a cliff) + equity with a 1 year cliff before vesting on a schedule that depended on the exact amount, but varied from annually to monthly.
This was true for new grad offers as well as for most experienced hires. I believe I've heard of different structures for cases where Google was doing essentially an equity buyout, but those were absolutely the exception, not the rule.
