DIGITAL VISIBILITY
The spam update
is complete
The spam update
is complete
Google's spam update from September is complete. It started on 24 September and was finished on 8 October, after 13 days and 16 hours according toGoogle's search status dashboard. It is the fourth spam update of the year, and by far the longest.
What does a spam update hit?
Spam updates hit pages that violateGoogle's spam policies. Typical violations are mass-produced content with no value for the reader, expired domains bought to rank other content, and link manipulation.
The update applied to all countries and all languages, including Norwegian. Google has not said which types of spam it targeted.
Much longer than earlier this year
The first three spam updates of the year took from 19 hours to just under three days. The September update took about five times as long as the update in August.
Early data shows bigger swings
The analytics company Diib looked at 32,569 websites on 29 September, in the middle of the rollout. The median share of unpaid traffic from Google fell from 34 to 31 percent. The share of websites that lost half their traffic or more rose from 5 to 10 percent.
Search Engine Journal describes the figures as an early indication. The final picture will only emerge once the rollout has had time to settle.
13 days and 16 hours of rollout
4 spam updates so far in 2026
31% unpaid Google traffic at the median, down from 34%
10% of websites lost at least half their traffic, up from 5%
Our take
Open Search Console and compare clicks and impressions across two periods:
Before:the period before 24 September
After:the period after 8 October
The pattern:a site-wide drop that starts within the rollout may be caused by the update
A drop on individual pages is more often down to seasonality, competitors or AI Overviews. If you follow Google's guidelines, there is no need to worry. Use the time before the next core update to clean up thin content and technical errors instead.
The next core update may be close
Google has not announced a major core update since May. In October, many reported ranking fluctuations without Google confirming any update, according toSearch Engine Roundtable. The industry expects a new core update soon.
Search Console has also got something new: you can now select several countries at once in the performance report. That makes it easier to compare, for example, the Nordics with the rest of the world.
Read more abouttechnical SEO, or book afree SEO health check.
Sources:Search Engine Journal, 8 October 2026,Search Engine Roundtable, 2 November 2026andWTF is SEO?, 2 November 2026.
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