Developing
Early volatility was reported, but Google has not said what the update targets, and causes are unconfirmed.
In 60 seconds
- Google released its September 2026 spam update on September 24 at 09:15 Pacific, for all languages and locations.
- Google said the rollout may take up to two weeks, longer than the March (19.5 hours), June (48 hours) and August (3 days) spam updates.
- Google published no blog post, new policy or list of affected tactics, per PPC Land.
- Site owners reported steep drops in some cases; the cause of those drops is not confirmed.
Impact Layer
- What changed
- Google started another spam update, with the longest rollout window of any this year.
- Why it matters
- Spam updates can change rankings for sites that rely on tactics Google treats as spam, and the lack of detail leaves site owners guessing.
- Who is affected
- Publishers and SEO teams, especially those using scaled content, expired domains or sponsored sections.
- Martech stack area
- SEO & Search, Content
- Stack impact
- Do not change a site in the middle of a rollout based on a ranking dip; wait for completion, then compare to the spam policies.
- Business impact
- Moderate Reports of traffic drops come from site owners and a volatility tracker, not from Google, and correlation is not proof of cause.
- Related technologies
- What to watch
- When Google posts completion on its status page, and whether it names the policies targeted.
Google released the September 2026 spam update on Wednesday, September 24, at 09:15 Pacific time. Its statement, as quoted by PPC Land, says the update applies globally and to all languages, and that the rollout may take up to two weeks.
How it compares
- March 2026 spam update: about 19.5 hours.
- June 2026: 48 hours.
- August 2026: three days.
- September 2026: up to 14 days, the longest of the year.
What Google did not say
PPC Land reports that Google published no blog post, announced no new policies, gave no list of targeted violations and no share of affected queries. It points to existing policies: expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, doorway abuse, back button hijacking and undisclosed incentivized reviews, enforced by Google’s SpamBrain system.
Early movement
Barry Schwartz documented elevated ranking movement from September 22 to 24. Some site operators reported Discover traffic down 70%, overall drops of 48 to 80% and ad revenue cut in half. Several rank-tracking services registered movement, though the cause is not confirmed.
Our read
If a site’s traffic moves during a rollout, the right first step is to wait: rankings can swing while an update is still being applied. After it ends, compare the site against the policies above. Sections that exist mainly to rank, such as large volumes of thin pages, third-party content hosted on a strong domain, or reviews that were paid for without disclosure, are the usual exposures. Google’s silence on specifics means reports of winners and losers are anecdotes until it says more.
Sources
- PPC Land: Google's September spam update gets a two-week rollout, its longest yet (opens in a new tab)
Source of the time, Google's statement, rollout comparison, the list of existing policies and early volatility.