Developing
Reports of more manual actions are anecdotal. Google has not commented on them.
In 60 seconds
- The rollout began September 24 (09:15 Pacific) and ended October 8 (01:37 Pacific), within Google's stated allowance of up to two weeks and the longest since August 2025 (27 days).
- Google called it "a normal spam update", named no policy and did not say what share of queries was affected.
- Barry Schwartz recorded volatility on September 25 to 27, September 30 and October 4 to 6.
- SEOs including Marie Haynes report a rise in manual action requests, mostly for thin content, pure spam and scaled content.
Impact Layer
- What changed
- The update has finished, and the question moves to recovery and manual actions.
- Why it matters
- If rankings moved from September 24 to October 8, this is a plausible cause, though Google did not confirm what it targeted.
- Who is affected
- SEO and content teams, especially sites with scaled or thin content.
- Martech stack area
- SEO & Search, Content
- Stack impact
- Compare Search Console data from before September 24 to now, check for manual actions, and review thin or scaled pages honestly.
- Business impact
- Moderate Timing from Google's dashboard as reported by PPC Land. The manual action increase is based on practitioner reports and a review of 12 forum threads, not data from Google.
- Related vendors
- What to watch
- A core update, which some expect soon, and Google comment on manual actions.
Google’s September 2026 spam update ran from September 24 (09:15 Pacific) to October 8 (01:37 Pacific), about 13 days 16 hours, PPC Land reported on October 9. Google had allowed up to two weeks. It was the longest spam update since August 2025 (27 days).
What Google said
Google called it “a normal spam update”, named no targeted policy, said link spam was not the target and did not say what share of queries was affected. Barry Schwartz recorded volatility on September 25 to 27, September 30 and October 4 to 6, while noting he could not verify that Google made no other changes.
Manual actions
Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 8 that Google may be issuing more manual action penalties than in recent weeks. Marie Haynes said requests went from essentially none to several a week, mostly for thin content, pure spam or scaled content, and mostly on legitimate, long-standing sites. Daniel Foley Carter linked the rise to scaled content and SEO budget cuts. Schwartz reviewed 12 forum threads; ChatGPT and Gemini, asked to review the forums, both reported more complaints but not a large spike. The evidence is anecdotal.
Our read
Check Search Console for manual actions first, then compare traffic before September 24 and now. Note that Search Console’s performance report was also running more than 64 hours late on October 11, so recent data may be incomplete.
Sources
- PPC Land: Google's September spam update ends after 13 days as manual actions rise (opens in a new tab)
Source of the rollout times, Google's statements and practitioner reports.
- Search Engine Roundtable: Google search issuing more manual action penalties? (opens in a new tab)
Source of the manual action reports and Barry Schwartz's forum review.