Gorgosaurus was named by Lambe (1914). Its type is Gorgosaurus libratus.

It was synonymized subjectively with Aublysodon by Romer (1956), Parsch (1963), Barsbold (1983); it was synonymized subjectively with Deinodon by Tatarinov (1964); it was synonymized subjectively with Albertosaurus by Russell (1970), Molnar (1980), Thulborn (1984), Molnar et al. (1990), Carpenter (1992).

It was assigned to Theropoda by Lambe (1914); to Aublysodontinae by Nopcsa (1928); to Deinodontinae by Matthew and Brown (1922), Hay (1930); to Theropoda by Parks (1935); to Carnosauria by Kuhn (1939); to Deinodontidae by Russell (1930), Stromer (1934), Russell (1935), Gilmore (1935), Gilmore (1946), Maleev (1955); to Pachypodosauria by Huene (1958); to Dinodontidae by Huene (1926), Huene (1927), Huene (1929), Swinton (1970); to Megalosaurinidae by Powell (1973); to Tyrannosaurinae by Holtz (1997), Holtz (2001); to Tyrannosauridae by Walker (1964), Romer (1966), Miller (1967), Steel (1970), Wolberg (1980), Currie (1992), Carr (1995), Carpenter (1997), Padian (1997), Sereno (1998), Eberth et al. (2001), Currie et al. (2003), Rauhut (2003), Erickson et al. (2004), Urban and Lamanna (2006), Smith (2007), Longrich (2008), Li et al. (2009), Paulina Carabajal and Currie (2012), Dalman (2013), Lü et al. (2014); and to Albertosaurinae by Currie (2003), Currie et al. (2003), Holtz (2004), Dalman et al. (2018), Rivera-Sylva and Longrich (2024).