- What's really going on: why is everyone talking about a major update coming?
- Should you worry now or wait and see what happens?
- What concrete signals show the update is near?
- What happened to Italian sites in the latest major updates?
- What changes in practice for your company: who does what?
- Three concrete scenarios: how much can failing to act in time cost you?
- Why the problem is even bigger: what are AI Overviews doing to your traffic?
- How to get started: the steps to protect yourself before the update
- What are the most common mistakes to avoid at this stage?
- How to tell if your site is already at risk or heading in the right direction
- So, is it worth acting now or can you wait?
- How we see it at SHM
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Google has updated its guidelines on AI content and is multiplying spam updates: the signs of an imminent major update are clear.
- Sites that use mass-generated content, fake authors or paid links risk losing visibility drastically and for a long time.
- The right move now is a preventive SEO audit, not waiting to see the drop in your data.
Google has already released four spam updates in 2026 alone, compared with one in all of 2025. If you recognize the pattern, you know the next major update isn't a possibility: it's a matter of weeks.
What's really going on: why is everyone talking about a major update coming?
Google multiplied its anti-spam updates in 2026 and rewrote its guidelines on AI content in recent weeks. Anyone who has followed algorithm cycles for years recognizes these signals as the phase that precedes a massive intervention.
In 2026 Google has already released four spam updates (March, June, August and September). In 2025 it launched just one. The interval between updates is getting shorter: it's the classic sign that the search engine is fine-tuning its aim before striking for good.
At the same time, Google has rewritten its official guide on using AI content, specifying that it is "critical" to manually fact-check all AI-generated material before publishing it. Titles, meta descriptions, structured data, image alt text: nothing is excluded. This is reported by Search Engine Roundtable.
At Search Central Live in Barcelona, a Google spokesperson publicly stated that content produced at scale is becoming a bigger problem than link spam. When Google says it out loud, action usually follows soon.
Should you worry now or wait and see what happens?
Waiting is the biggest risk. Those hit by past major updates took months or years to recover the visibility they lost. Acting first costs far less.
| Your situation | Urgency | why |
|---|---|---|
| You use AI content published without manual review | No, for now | Google explicitly cites it as an example of low effort |
| You have authors with AI-generated photos or credentials | No, for now | Google explicitly calls it a form of deception |
| You bought links or paid mentions without disclosing them | No, for now | Direct violation of the link spam policy |
| You publish original content with human review | Low | You're already heading in the right direction, but an audit is still useful |
| You've already seen ranking drops in 2026 | No, for now | You may already be in the crosshairs: act now |
The March 2024 Core Update, one of the biggest in Google's history, reduced low-quality content in results by 40%, according to CMSWire. That update also hit sites that had only "brushed against" gray-area tactics, not just cases of pure spam.
The pattern repeats: first the signals appear in the guidelines, then comes the action. Right now we're in the signals phase.
What concrete signals show the update is near?
Google updates its guidelines before it acts: it happened before Panda, Penguin, Medic and March 2024. Today those signals are all lit up again.
The history of Google's algorithms shows a clear pattern: guideline changes always precede major updates. It's no coincidence, it's a warning.
| Year | Signal in the guidelines | Update that followed |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2011 | Matt Cutts warns about content farms | Panda, Feb 2011 |
| Mar 2012 | Announcement of penalties for 'over-optimized' sites | Penguin, Apr 2012 |
| Jul 2018 | New emphasis on author reputation | Medic core update, Aug 2018 |
| Sep 2023 | Google removes 'written by people' from the guidelines | Scaled content abuse policy, Mar 2024 |
| Oct 2026 | Mandatory AI fact-checking, fake authors = deception | Imminent update (forecast) |
Today Google has added a precise definition of "main content" to its guidelines for Quality Raters, the human evaluators who judge page quality. Four criteria: effort, originality, talent or skill, accuracy. Mass-producing AI content without oversight is cited as an example of no or minimal effort. This is confirmed by the updated guidelines analyzed by Originality.ai.
At the same time, more companies are openly selling paid mentions in listicles, the "best X products" lists, to influence Google's AI answers (AI Overviews). Google has already stated that these practices aren't as effective as they seem, and when they include links that pass ranking credit, they violate the link spam policy.
What happened to Italian sites in the latest major updates?
The 2025 updates already hit many Italian sites hard, including major publishers. SMEs with unsupervised AI content face the same risk.
The March 2025 Core Update, completed in 14 days, produced a peak in ranking volatility of +5.76% on Italian SERPs, with a +1.81% increase in sites dropping out of the top 10, according to SEOZoom's analysis.
The June 2025 Core Update also hit major Italian news outlets. Visibility data (measured by SISTRIX, an SEO analysis tool) show significant losses for some and gains for others: the difference came down to content quality and originality.
If major publishers with structured newsrooms can lose 30% of their visibility in a single update, a small business or professional firm that has handed content production to an AI tool without review faces an even greater risk. We explore the topic in our article on the Google Spam Update of September 2026 and the urgent SEO audit.
What changes in practice for your company: who does what?
The update doesn't only hit pure spam sites. It hits anyone who has adopted tactics Google considers shortcuts, even in good faith.
- 1 · Marketing manager / business ownerReview your content strategyCheck whether any AI-generated content has been published without human review in the past 12 months. If so, fix that first.
- 2 · SEO specialist or agencyRun a technical and content auditAnalyze pages with declining traffic, verify the quality of the listed authors, and check your link profile for undisclosed paid links.
- 3 · Editorial / content teamTurn on manual review for all AI contentEvery AI-generated text must be fact-checked, rewritten where needed, and signed by a real author with verifiable credentials.
- 4 · Marketing managerSet up ranking monitoringSet up alerts in Google Search Console and in a rank-tracking tool so you catch any changes right away.
- 5 · Leadership / managementExplore alternative visibility channelsGoogle Ads campaigns, presence in AI Overviews and direct traffic are the alternatives to activate in parallel, so you don't depend on organic traffic alone.
Three concrete scenarios: how much can failing to act in time cost you?
The cost of an unmanaged update is measured in months of lost traffic and missed revenue. Three illustrative examples show the order of magnitude.
The numbers below are illustrative scenarios built to show the potential impact. They are not real client data.
| Company type | Monthly organic traffic (estimate) | Hypothetical drop (-30%) | Estimated revenue impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fashion e-commerce (SME) | 20,000 visits/month | -6,000 visits | Potential loss of €3,000-6,000 per month |
| Professional firm (consulting) | 5,000 visits/month | -1,500 visits | 5-10 fewer leads per month |
| B2B manufacturing company | 8,000 visits/month | -2,400 visits | 20-30% fewer quote requests |
Add recovery time to these numbers: after the March 2024 Core Update, many sites took 6-12 months to get back to their previous levels, and some never did. The risk to organic traffic is analyzed in detail in our article on Google Zero and the disappearance of organic traffic.
Why the problem is even bigger: what are AI Overviews doing to your traffic?
Even without a major update, organic traffic is already under pressure from AI Overviews. A massive update would make an already difficult situation worse.
AI Overviews, the boxes with AI-generated answers that appear at the top of Google results, have already cut organic traffic significantly. A Seer Interactive study of over 25 million impressions measured a drop in CTR (click-through rate) from 1.76% to 0.61% on queries where an AI Overview appears, according to Search Engine Land.
Research from the Pew Research Center on nearly 69,000 real searches found that when an AI Overview appears, only 8% of users click a traditional organic result, versus 15% when there is no AI Overview, as reported in this analysis. A major update that penalizes your site even further adds to this existing pressure.
The impact of AI Overviews on organic SEO is explored in our article on AI Overviews at 43% and their impact on organic SEO.
How do you start? The steps to protect yourself before the update
A preventive SEO audit done now is worth ten times more than corrective action after the drop. Here are the steps, in the right order.
In June 2025, Google added dedicated reports to Search Console, Google's free tool for monitoring your site's presence in search results, to separate visibility in AI surfaces from traditional organic visibility, as reported by CMSWire. That means you already have a tool to see where you're exposed.
- 1 · Step 1Open Search Console and review the last 3 months of dataLook for pages with drops in impressions or clicks. Turn on the new AI reports to see your visibility in AI Overviews.
- 2 · Step 2Identify unreviewed AI contentList all content published with AI support in the past 12 months. Prioritize the pages with the most traffic.
- 3 · Step 3Check your site's link profileCheck for purchased links or undisclosed paid mentions. Remove them or add the 'sponsored' attribute.
- 4 · Step 4Review your author pagesEvery author must be a real person with a verifiable name, an authentic photo and, where possible, linked social or professional profiles.
- 5 · Step 5Set up ranking monitoringSet alerts on at least 20-30 strategic keywords. If rankings drop by more than 5 positions in 48 hours, that's a signal to investigate right away.
- 6 · Step 6Plan alternative channelsLaunch or strengthen paid campaigns and work on your presence in AI Overviews so you don't rely on organic traffic alone.
What are the most common mistakes to avoid at this stage?
The most dangerous mistakes aren't the obvious ones. Companies often hurt themselves while thinking they're doing the right thing.
| Common mistake | Why it's dangerous | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Publishing AI content without review because it 'looks good' | Google evaluates effort, originality and accuracy: AI alone isn't enough | Mandatory human review of every piece of content before publication |
| Buying mentions in listicles to appear in AI Overviews | It violates the link spam policy if the links pass ranking credit | Focus on original content that deserves to be cited |
| Waiting for the drop before acting | Recovery after an update takes months or years | Run a preventive audit now, not later |
| Using AI-generated photos or bios for authors | Google explicitly calls them a form of deception | Real authors with verifiable credentials |
| Thinking it's enough to 'not do spam' | Gray-area tactics get hit too, not just pure spam | Full alignment with the guidelines, not just avoiding the extreme cases |
How to tell if your site is already at risk or heading in the right direction
There are clear indicators that show whether a site is vulnerable or safe. Monitoring them now lets you act before the update arrives.
| Indicator | Positive signal | Risk signal |
|---|---|---|
| Content published in the past 12 months | All reviewed by a human, real authors | Mass AI production, little or no review |
| Link profile | Organically earned links, no paid links | Purchased links or undisclosed paid mentions |
| Ranking trend (last 3 months) | Stable or growing | Gradual drops, even small ones |
| Author pages | Real people with verifiable credentials | Generic authors, AI photos, made-up names |
| Visibility in AI Overviews | Growing organic citations | No presence at all, or a drop in recent weeks |
| Manual actions in Search Console | No notifications | Manual penalty notifications received |
So, is it worth acting now or can you wait?
It's worth it if you've published AI content without review, have undisclosed paid links, or have already seen ranking drops in 2026. In that case, every week that passes increases your risk.
Somewhere in between: your site is healthy but you've never done a structured audit. A preventive check now costs little and can head off serious problems.
Not yet if you already have a human review process for all your content, a clean link profile, and you monitor your ranking every week. Keep it up and watch the signals.
How we see it at SHM
For us, AI is a powerful tool, but human judgment remains irreplaceable. Using AI to mass-produce content without oversight isn't efficiency: it's a debt, and sooner or later Google presents the bill.
We believe technology should be integrated to free companies from routine, not to replace expertise. Content written with AI but reviewed, enriched, and signed by a real person can withstand any update. Content produced automatically and published without checks is a target.
We work with Italian manufacturing companies and SMEs that have faced exactly this challenge: building a solid organic presence that doesn't depend on shortcuts. Think of an industrial company that, after investing in original technical content and a clean SEO structure, saw its visibility grow in the very months when competitors using unsupervised AI content were losing positions. It's no accident: it's the result of a strategy built to last.
If you want to understand where you're exposed before the update arrives, the starting point is our SEO for AI and strategic AI integration services. If you want to protect your visibility through alternative channels too, Google Ads campaigns are the fastest tool to activate alongside organic.
The full picture of how Google is changing the rules of the game for organic and AI visibility is in our dedicated hub on SEO and AI visibility. It's worth keeping an eye on it in the coming weeks: the signals move fast.
You can also dig deeper into how Google is changing the handling of editorial preferences in our article on Google editorial preferences and the drop in AI traffic, and into what the automatic expansion of AI Overviews means in our article on Google auto-expanding AI Overviews.
Frequently Asked Questions
Open Google Search Console and check the trend in impressions and clicks over the last 3 months. If you see gradual drops, even small ones, or if you've published AI content without human review, you're exposed. A structured SEO audit gives you a clear picture in just a few days.
No. Google doesn't penalize AI itself, but it does penalize low-quality, unoriginal content or content with no human review. AI-generated text that has been reviewed, enriched, and signed by a real author is perfectly acceptable. The problem is mass production without oversight.
There's no firm date, but the signals in Google's guidelines are already all lit up. Historically, weeks, not months, pass between public signals and concrete action. Starting your audit now is the most prudent choice.
It depends on the severity and the type of penalty. After the March 2024 Core Update, many sites took 6-12 months to return to their previous levels. Some never got back. Prevention costs far less than recovery.
Paid campaigns don't replace organic, but they guarantee immediate visibility while you work on your SEO recovery. Activating or boosting Ads campaigns in the weeks before and during a major update is a revenue protection strategy, not a permanent fix.
AI Overviews are the boxes with AI-generated answers that Google shows at the top of search results. When they appear, the click-through rate on traditional organic results collapses: a study of nearly 69,000 real searches measured a drop from 15% to 8%. Being cited in AI Overviews has become an SEO goal in its own right.
The next major Google update isn't a future threat: it's the deadline for deciding what kind of digital presence you want to have.
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