Google Spam Update September 2026: what to check right now

Updated on October 17, 2026

In just three days of rollout, the share of sites that lost more than half of their Google traffic doubled: from 5% to 10%. If your site hasn't been checked yet, now is the time.

Does this update really affect me, or can I wait?

It depends on what's on your site. If you have mass-generated pages, opaque redirects or thin content, the risk is real and waiting is expensive.

The September 2026 Google Spam Update started on September 24 and ended on October 8, after 13 days and 16 hours of rollout. It's the fourth spam update of the year and the longest: the previous three (March, June, August) lasted 2 days and 16 hours at most. Search Engine Land confirms it.

A longer rollout doesn't necessarily mean a milder impact. It means the algorithm worked on a wider set of signals, with more time to lock in the new positions. Once lost, they take months to win back, according to Google Search Central's official documentation.

What does this spam update really target (and what doesn't it)?

Google has explicitly clarified that this update isn't about link spam. The targets are scaled content, deceptive redirects and other violations of existing anti-spam rules.

The distinction matters. Many audits focus on backlinks, but for this update they're a secondary priority. Search Engine Roundtable reports Google's direct confirmation: the September 2026 Spam Update doesn't touch link spam.

The three areas to check right now are: scaled content abuse (mass production of pages with no real added value), programmatic content (automatically generated pages that don't answer a real user question) and deceptive redirects (pages that show different content to Google and to users).

One detail that changes your strategy: since May 15, 2026, Google's spam policies also apply to generative answers, meaning AI Overviews (the automatic summaries Google shows above results) and AI Mode. This is confirmed by Google Search Central's official documentation. The September 2026 Spam Update is the third anti-spam update launched since this extension of the rules.

How big was the impact on Italian and international sites?

In the first three days of the rollout, the share of sites that lost more than half of their Google traffic doubled. Documented cases show losses across tens of thousands of queries.

A study of more than 32,000 sites connected to Google Analytics measured the impact in the first 72 hours. The median share of organic search visits fell from 34% to 31%. The percentage of sites that lost more than half of their Google traffic went from 5% to 10%. The data is reported by Davydov Consulting.

The most severe documented cases relate to the August 2026 Spam Update, but they give a sense of scale: a site in a YMYL sector (one where information affects people's health, finances or safety) lost rankings on over 200,000 queries. Another site with 250,000 URLs lost or saw degraded rankings for about 25,000 queries. This is reported by GSQI.

How can I tell if my site was hit?

The most direct signal is a sharp, sudden drop in impressions and clicks on the rollout dates. Google Search Console is the first tool to open.

Google Search Console (Google's free platform for monitoring your site's health) is where you start. Go to the Performance section and compare September 24 – October 8 with the two weeks before. A sharp drop on your main pages in that window is the first signal to take seriously.

Also check the Manual Actions section: if there's a notice, it's your top priority. Manual actions are penalties applied by a human Google reviewer, not by the automated algorithm, and they require a specific reconsideration request.

To find out whether your site also shows up in Google's AI answers, the analysis is different: the article on SAFE, Google's AI spam detector explains how the filtering system works for generative search too.

What are the four checks to run right now?

Four concrete checks, in the right order: Search Console, thin content, redirects and canonical tags. Backlinks are still worth monitoring, but they aren't the priority for this update.

One specific point on AI-generated content: according to Google's official documentation, using generative AI tools to produce many pages without adding value for users violates the scaled content abuse policy. Manually reviewing accuracy before publishing is mandatory. It's not a recommendation: it's a condition for avoiding penalties.

To understand how Google is evolving its anti-spam rules on the AI front, the article on Google updating its anti-spam rules for AI in Search gives you the full picture of the rules currently in force.

Three concrete scenarios: what changes for an Italian company?

The impact depends on the type of site and how its content was produced. Here are three typical situations, with the estimated risk and the priority actions.

Illustrative examples: numbers are meant to show the reasoning, they are not real customer data.

Spam updates and AI search: are they two separate problems?

No. Since May 2026, the same anti-spam rules also apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode. A site penalized in traditional search risks disappearing from generative answers too.

Until a year ago, traditional SEO and visibility in AI answers were two separate fronts. Not anymore. Google extended its spam policies to generative search on May 15, 2026, and the September 2026 Spam Update is the third update launched under this new regime.

AI-generated answers — Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity — cite specific sources. Those sources aren't necessarily the same ones Google rewards in traditional results. Focusing only on protecting yourself from spam filters without covering those channels too gives you a partial view. The article on Google AI Overviews and what changes for SEO in 2026 explains how source selection works in generative answers.

If you want to know who appears in your place in the AI answers for your industry, the article on SEO without the Google index and site visibility offers a concrete perspective on how managing organic visibility is changing.

What mistakes are most common after a spam update?

The costliest is waiting for the rollout to finish before you act. The second is focusing on backlinks when the problem is in your content.

The "I'll wait for the final data" approach seems cautious, but in the meantime Google locks in the new rankings. Recovering lost rankings takes months, sometimes longer: Google's documentation says so explicitly. In the case of link spam, the ranking benefits that were lost can't be recovered at all.

The second mistake is focusing only on backlinks. For this update, it's the wrong priority: Google has confirmed that link spam isn't in its sights. The focus should be on content generated at scale and on technical redirect issues.

A third common mistake is treating traditional SEO as the only front. As the article on Google Search at all-time highs and what changes for SEO explains, classic organic search now coexists with generative channels that follow different logic.

How can you tell if your fixes are really working?

Recovering your rankings takes months. The right indicators to track are impressions, clicks and average position in Google Search Console, week by week.

There's no immediate signal confirming recovery. Google updates rankings gradually, and its automated systems need to "learn" that your site complies with the policies. This process takes months, as stated in the official documentation.

Tracking the right indicators helps you see whether you're heading in the right direction, even before you've fully recovered.

So, is an audit worth it right now for your business?

It depends on your site. If you have mass-generated content or unverified redirects, the answer is yes, and the sooner the better.

It's worth it if you've published AI-generated pages without human review, or you have complex redirects or programmatic content. The risk is real, and an audit is the first move.

Somewhere in between: your site has original content, but you've never run a technical audit. A quick check is worth it: it takes less than an hour and gives you certainty.

Not yet if your site has original, reviewed content, no unusual redirects, and Search Console shows no warnings. The risk is low, but keep an eye on your data over the next few weeks.

How we see it at SHM

For us, generative AI is a powerful tool for freeing teams from routine production, but human judgment on content quality can't be delegated. Google put it in black and white in its policies, and the September 2026 Spam Update confirmed it with data. Using AI to produce pages at scale without review isn't optimization: it's a risk that builds up silently until the next rollout.

We work on technical SEO audits and content strategies for companies that want to cover both traditional search and generative channels. If you need to understand where your site stands against anti-spam rules, our SEO for AI service and our strategic AI integration service are the right starting points. For a complete picture of SEO and visibility in AI answers, the SEO and AI visibility cluster collects all the practical analyses we publish regularly.

Frequently Asked Questions

A site penalized by Google isn't a technical problem: it's a trust problem that builds up page by page, and it's only solved the same way it was created, one review at a time.