Google's September 2026 spam update has finished rolling out
Google's September 2026 spam update finished rolling out on 8 October 2026, two weeks after it started. If your search traffic dropped between 24 September and 8 October, here is how to check whether this update was the cause, and what to do.
Last updated · By the XKey team
What happened?
Google started the September 2026 spam update on 24 September 2026 and said it could take up to two weeks. Its Search Status Dashboard marked the rollout complete on 8 October 2026. Google described it as a normal spam update that applies to all languages and all countries, the UK included. It didn't announce any change to its spam policies.
What does a spam update target?
Spam updates improve Google's automated systems for spotting sites that break its spam policies. Sites that break them can rank lower or drop out of results altogether. The usual causes are:
- Bought or swapped links meant to manipulate rankings.
- Mass-produced pages made to catch searches rather than help people, including AI-written pages published at scale with nothing added.
- Doorway pages, such as dozens of near-identical "plumber in [town]" pages.
- Hacked content injected into a site without the owner knowing.
- Expired domains or rented pages used to borrow another site's reputation.
What does it mean for a small UK business?
Most small business sites have nothing to fear from a spam update. If your traffic fell in the window, rule out the common causes first: a site change, a noindex tag, a blocked robots.txt or a hacked page. Run the free SEO check and compare Search Console's Performance report for the two weeks before 24 September with the two weeks after 8 October (see why has my website traffic dropped?).
If you've ever paid for links, check who links to you with the toxic backlink checker. If you built lots of town pages that only swap the place name, merge them into fewer, genuinely useful pages – our guide to SEO for multiple locations shows how. Sites hit by a spam update can recover, but Google says it can take months for its systems to learn that a site now follows the rules. Links Google has already discounted don't come back, so removing bought links won't restore what they once gave you.
Every confirmed update, with its dates, is listed on our Google algorithm updates tracker.
Sources
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