What Changed and Who Was Hit by Google's September 2026 Spam Update

Google rolls out updates throughout the year, and every live website feels them. Some sites take a hit, while others see their rankings climb. This time it was a spam update, which started on September 24 and finished on October 8, 2026, a rollout of 13 days and 16 hours. What was the scope? Google said it applied globally and to all languages, and called it a “normal spam update”. No new spam policy came with it.

So, on the surface, the story looks simple. But what actually happened?

Google describes a spam update as an improvement to its automated spam-detection systems, including SpamBrain, its AI-based spam-prevention system. Those systems run all the time, and a named update marks a change in how they work. Google hasn’t said what this rolloutaddressed. What SEOs did see was ranking volatility around September 25 to 27, again near September 30, and between October 4 and 7. It also ran far longer than the year’s earlier spam updates. So, the real story is a quiet system upgrade, not a new rule.

Google said nothing has changed because of this update! Yet something has changed. What’s that?

“Nothing new,” Google said; it's just a normal spam update. But if that were the whole story, why did it take almost two weeks?

Look at the numbers. The earlier spam updates this year wrapped up in about 20 hours, a little over two days, and about two days and sixteen hours. When a “normal” update behaves this differently, something under the hood has likely changed.

What exactly? Honestly, nobody knows. Google hasn’t said what this rollout addressed, and no new policy came with it. All we have are the ranking swings SEOs noticed along the way.

The honest answer is that something shifted in how spam is detected, but Google hasn’t told us what. So, it’s not the time to sit back and relax, as something may be hidden behind it that may affect your site’s web presence in the coming days.

This might make you feel curious to know who may have been hit.

As Google hasn’t confirmed what this update targeted, the sites and pages with such glitches may have been hit:

•          Sites publishing mass-produced, low-value pages mainly to rank, whether written by AI or humans.

•          Blogs that scrape or copy content from other websites with little original value added.

•          The buying, selling or joining of links on the site built to manipulate rankings.

•          Pages filled with unnatural keyword stuffing that makes the text hard to read.

•          Sites showing search engines different content than what real visitors actually see, called cloaking.

•          Hacked websites with spam pages or hidden links injected without the owner’s knowledge.

•          Expired domains bought and reused mainly to borrow the old site’s authority.

•          Affiliate pages with Low popularity that repeat product descriptions without any review.

•          Sites filled with spammy comments, or user-generated content left unmoderated.

•          Pages using sneaky redirects or misleading designs that send visitors somewhere unexpected.

This should be your next move by checking your site properly

Ensure you make your first action by completely reading and understanding the updated Google’s spam policies, along with what are its recommendations for any site that glimpsed a change after a spam update. Then go through your website or web pages and do an unbiased checkup of it; ask whether a stranger would find each one genuinely useful. Thin, copied or repetitive posts are the ones to rewrite with your own examples or remove.

If your numbers look steady, that’s good news, but treat it as a reminder, not a free pass. Keep publishing original, carefully checked posts, and recheck Search Console in a few weeks, since the full picture takes time to settle.

Never forget to go through these checks for your website

•          Check for a clear drop in clicks, impressions and average position in Search Console for the past two weeks. A drop symbol is a clear warning sign.

•          Open the Pages report to see which posts actually lost traffic. Often only one or two weak posts slipped, and that tells you exactly where to start improving your content.

•          Check Security & manual actions in Search Console to rule out a penalty or a hack. Spam updates are algorithmic, so any manual action would appear separately with a message.

•          Review your posts again and again honestly to securely eliminate any repetitive or copied content. Ask yourself whether your audience would find all the insight and information inside the page useful, and remove the ones that are clearly not.

•          Spammy links won't deserve any space on your page or content. Also review each incoming link carefully in the Search Console Links report for paid or suspicious ones. Use the disavow tool only if you are sure it is needed.

•          Review comments and guest content. Delete spammy comments with promotional links, and moderate new ones, because unmoderated spam on your pages can count against your site in Google’s eyes.

Techspiels take on this?

A “normal” update that takes two weeks? NOT REALLY!! That’s anything but normal. The earlier spam updates this year wrapped up within days, so my gut says Google is quietly returning to how it spots spam, and keeping the details to itself. For bloggers, the lesson stays simple: write for real readers, edit everything, and never publish what you can’t defend. Follow Techspiels for more intuitive, informative posts like this.