Google's September 2026 Spam Update: What UK Small Businesses Should Check

What is a Google spam update?

Google runs automated systems that demote content breaking its published spam policies. A spam update is an improvement to those systems. It is separate from a core update, which changes how Google judges quality and relevance more broadly.

According to Google's Search Status Dashboard, this year's updates so far are:

• March 2026 spam update: 24 March, 19 hours and 30 minutes.
• June 2026 spam update: 24 June, 2 days and 1 hour.
• August 2026 spam update: 18 August, 2 days and 16 hours.
• September 2026 spam update: 24 September, 13 days and 16 hours.

The September update was by far the longest of the four. A long rollout means rankings could move at different times for different sites, so a single date is not enough to judge the effect.

How do you check whether your site was affected?

Use Search Console, not rank-tracking tools, as your starting point.

1. Open the Performance report and set the date range to compare 24 September to 8 October against the 14 days before it.
2. Look at impressions and clicks together. A drop in both points to a ranking change. A drop in clicks alone is more likely to be AI answers or seasonality. Our guide to reading Search Console in the AI Overviews era covers that distinction.
3. Break it down by page. If one folder of pages fell and the rest held steady, you have found where to look.
4. Check Manual actions in Search Console. A spam update is automated and will not appear there, but a manual action would, and it needs a different response.
5. Wait before changing anything. Other changes, such as a redesign, a migration or a seasonal dip, can look identical. Make one fix at a time so you can tell what worked.

If nothing moved, there is nothing to fix. Do not rewrite pages in response to an update that did not affect you.

Which spam policies matter most to small businesses?

Google's spam policies list many abuses. Most are irrelevant to an ordinary business site, but a few are easy to drift into, often through an agency or a past SEO job:

• Scaled content abuse: mass-producing pages mainly to manipulate rankings, with little value to users. Google says this applies "no matter how it's created", which includes AI tools. Publishing 200 near-identical "plumber in [town]" pages is the classic example.
• Link spam: links to or from your site made mainly to manipulate rankings, including paid links. Old directory or "guest post" packages bought years ago can fall into this.
• Keyword stuffing: repeating keywords or town names unnaturally. If a page reads oddly aloud, it probably needs rewriting.
• Hidden text and links: content placed so search engines see it but visitors do not.
• Site reputation abuse: hosting third-party content mainly to benefit from your site's ranking signals, for instance letting an outside company publish unrelated coupon or review pages on your domain.
• Hacked content: pages or links added to your site without your permission. This is a security problem as much as an SEO one, so see our website security checklist.

What should you do if you find a problem?

Fix the cause, then let Google's systems re-evaluate the site over time. Recovery is not instant, and there is no form to request that an automated demotion is lifted.

• Thin or duplicate location and service pages: merge them, or rewrite each so it genuinely differs, with real local detail you can stand behind.
• Questionable links: if you know of paid or manipulative links you control, remove them.
• Old agency content: ask what was published on your behalf and why. Every page should earn its place.
• Hacked content: clean the site, patch the vulnerability and change passwords before anything else.

Quality, original pages with a clear purpose remain the safest approach. That is the principle behind our SEO service, which starts with an audit of what is already on your site.

When should you not worry?

If your site has a modest number of pages written for real customers, no bought links and no third-party content, a spam update is unlikely to be the cause of a traffic change. Look first at seasonality, tracking changes and search behaviour.