Google started rolling out its September 2026 spam update on September 24, 2026: it's global, covers all languages and may take up to two weeks to complete. If your site publishes useful, original content, you shouldn't notice anything; if it mass-produces pages just to rank, now is the time to review it.
What we know
- Start: September 24, 2026, 09:15 Pacific time, according to the Google Search Status Dashboard.
- Scope: global and in all languages.
- Duration: up to two weeks of rollout — roughly until October 8.
- Context: it's the fourth spam update of 2026; the previous one came in August.
What a spam update targets
It isn't a core update: it doesn't re-rank the web on overall quality, it strengthens the detection of practices Google treats as spam. Google's official list includes, among others, scaled content abuse — which Google defines as "many pages generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users" — site reputation abuse, expired domain abuse, cloaking, keyword stuffing and link spam.
Using AI to write isn't banned in itself. What gets hit is volume without original value: hundreds of near-identical pages, rewrites of what already exists, or text created to occupy searches rather than answer them.
How to tell if you're affected
First, don't react mid-rollout. Once it's done, compare clicks and impressions in Search Console for the two weeks after September 24 against the two weeks before, page by page. If the drop is concentrated in a group of mass-produced pages, that's the problem; if it's even across the whole site, something else may be going on. Check the Manual actions report too: a spam update is algorithmic and sends no notice, but a manual action does show up there.
One practical tip: don't mass-delete content out of fear. Identify which pages dropped and why first; then decide whether to improve, merge or remove them.
How we apply it at DomHostSeo
This week we started publishing technology news in Spanish and English, and updates like this one are exactly why we set our rules: every news piece has to bring its own angle, links its sources, and we measure each page for 28 days before increasing the pace. We'd rather publish less and have every page count. If you want your site reviewed before the rollout ends, our SEO service always starts with an audit built on your own data.
Sources
- Google Search Status Dashboard: September 2026 spam update
- Google Search spam policies
- Search Engine Land: Google releases September 2026 spam update
Updates: we'll add the date Google marks the rollout as complete.