Cuckoo search (CS) is a new nature-inspired intelligent algorithm which uses the whole update and evaluation strategy on solutions. For solving multi-dimension function optimization problems, this strategy may deteriorate the convergence speed and the quality of solution of algorithm due to interference phenomena among dimensions. To overcome this shortage, a dimension by dimension improvement based cuckoo search algorithm is proposed. In the progress of iteration of improved algorithm, a dimension by dimension based update and evaluation strategy on solutions is used. The proposed strategy combines an updated value of one dimension with values of other dimensions into a new solution, and greedily accepts any updated values that can improve the solution. The simulation experiments show that the proposed strategy can improve the convergence speed and the quality of the solutions effectively. Meanwhile, the results also reveal the proposed algorithm is competitive for continuous function optimization problems compared with other improved cuckoo search algorithms and other evolution algorithms.