Welp! In September 2026, Google announced yet another actualización de spam. This is the fourth one in 2026, following the previous ones in March, Juney August. Google mentioned that it may take about two weeks to fully roll out across all languages and regions.
What is Google’s September 2026 spam update?
The update began rolling out globally on September 24th. The previous updates took only a couple of days, but this one could take up to two weeks. Once it is fully rolled out, it will be marked as complete on the Google Search Status Dashboard. It’s a general spam update that targets websites violating Google’s spam policies. Google hasn’t said which policies or tactics it focuses on, and it isn’t a link spam update.
Why it matters for publishers
Google continues to reinforce its algorithms. You could experience changes in your traffic because of these updates. These spam updates serve to improve Google’s automated spam detection systems. Their goal is to catch and demote pages that break Google’s spam policies, so those pages rank lower or disappear from results entirely.
SER reported ranking volatility on the morning of the announcement, though it notes that the movement before the announcement wasn’t the update itself. A follow-up the next day said volatility was clearly spiking.
We highly suggest that publishers stick to Google’s spam policies to reduce the risks of losing search ranking and therefore impacting ad monetization. These policies cover practices such as:
- Cloaking: serving one version of a page to search engines and another to visitors
- Site reputation abuse: letting third parties post low-quality content on a trusted site to ride on its credibility
- Scaled content abuse: publishing large volumes of thin or automatically generated pages
- Expired domain abuse: buying an old domain and using its existing authority to rank unrelated content
Conclusiones clave
- Google started rolling out a new spam update on the 24th of September.
- This is the fourth spam update of the year following March, June, and August.
- It serves to improve Google’s automated spam detection systems and targets websites not following Google’s policies.
- No specific policies were targeted in this announcement. Google stated that this is just a normal spam update.
- We recommend you review your site to make sure you are correctly applying these policies.
How to prepare for any traffic risks
Easy. Review Google’s spam policies and make sure you are following them like your life depends on it, since violating sites may rank lower or drop out of results. Recovery is possible but super slow, because Google’s systems need months to learn that a site now complies and is all good to go.
Not sure whether this update is affecting your monetization? Reach out to our Publisher Success Specialists and they’ll take a look!
