Google Completes Spam Update

Google has confirmed that its September 2026 spam update has now finished rolling out worldwide, almost two weeks after it was first launched.

The update took considerably longer than the three previous spam updates Google released in 2026. Website owners can now use the rollout dates to compare their Search Console data and see whether their search performance changed during the update.

September Spam Update Takes Nearly 14 Days

Google confirmed that the September spam update was completed on 8 October 2026, with the Search Status Dashboard recording the rollout as finished at 1am PDT.

The update began on 24 September and was applied globally across all languages.

Google had warned when the update launched that the rollout could take up to two weeks. It eventually took 13 days and 16 hours, making it the longest spam update so far this year.

For comparison, Google’s earlier 2026 spam updates took:

Update	Rollout time
March 2026	19 hours 30 minutes
June 2026	2 days 1 hour
August 2026	2 days 16 hours
September 2026	13 days 16 hours

The September update was also longer than Google’s August 2025 spam update, which ran for around 27 days.

Google describes spam updates as improvements to its automated systems for identifying and dealing with spam in search results.

So far, Google has not provided specific details about what changed with the September update or why it required substantially more time to complete.

Early Signs Of Ranking Changes

Some early data suggested that the update may have affected organic search traffic for a number of websites.

On 29 September, Diib analysed 32,569 websites connected to Google Analytics. It compared the proportion of visits coming from unpaid Google search between 24 and 26 September with the same period one week earlier.

The median share of traffic from organic Google search fell from 34% to 31%.

The research also found that 10% of the websites saw their share of organic Google traffic fall by at least half, compared with 5% during the earlier comparison period.

However, Diib stressed that the figures were only an early indication and could not show which websites had been identified as spam by Google.

Other tracking issues also made the initial impact difficult to assess.

SEOmonitor reported that several ranking tools recorded sharp changes beginning around 26 September. However, these changes were not always reflected in what people were seeing when manually searching Google.

The company suggested that automated rank trackers may have been receiving incomplete or inaccurate results from Google during the rollout.

Check Search Console Before Reacting

Now that the update has ended, website owners have a clearer period to examine when looking for potential changes.

The 24 September to 8 October window can be used to compare performance before, during and after the update in Google Search Console.

A drop in rankings or traffic during this period does not automatically mean that the spam update was responsible.

For example, a third-party rank tracker might show a sudden decline that does not appear in Search Console. In this situation, it is worth checking your Search Console impressions and clicks before making major changes to the website.

A decline that continues for several days and is also visible in impressions and clicks is more meaningful than a short-term movement shown only by a ranking tracker.

What Should Website Owners Do?

If your website experienced a significant decline during the update, Google’s spam policies are a good place to start.

Review your website against Google’s guidelines and look for anything that could be considered spam or low-quality behaviour.

Google recommends addressing any issues and giving its systems time to recognise the changes. Improvements may take months to be reflected in how a site performs.

With the September update now complete, website owners should focus on analysing their own data rather than reacting to short-term ranking fluctuations.

The most useful comparison will come from looking at Search Console performance before, during and after the rollout to determine whether any changes were sustained.