SEO news · Google update
Google’s September 2026 spam update started on 24 September and finished on 8 October. If your Google traffic dropped in that window, this is the first place to look.
The news in 30 seconds
The September 2026 spam update ran from 24 September to 8 October (13 days and 16 hours) and applied worldwide, in all languages. It was Google’s fourth spam update of 2026, after March, June and August. Ranking swings reported in late October and early November have not been confirmed by Google as an update.
What happened
Google confirmed the update on its Search Status Dashboard and said it “applies globally and to all languages”. Spam updates improve Google’s automatic spam detection. They’re different from core updates, which re-rank sites on overall quality.
| 2026 update | Started | Length |
|---|---|---|
| March spam update | 24 Mar | Under 1 day |
| June spam update | 24 Jun | About 2 days |
| August spam update | 18 Aug | About 3 days |
| September spam update | 24 Sep | 13 days 16 hours |
SEO forums reported more ranking movement around 20–24 October and in early November. Google hasn’t confirmed any update for those dates, so don’t assume one.
What it means for Irish businesses
A spam update only hurts sites that break Google’s spam policies. The usual problems on small business sites are paid or swapped links, lots of near-identical town pages, and bulk AI pages nobody checked.
If you didn’t drop between 24 September and 8 October, this update didn’t touch you.
What to do now
- In Search Console, compare clicks for 10–23 September with 9–22 October
- Check Security & Manual actions in Search Console for any warnings
- Remove or noindex thin, copy-paste location pages
- Stop buying links, and remove any you paid for
- Fix the cause first. Recovery takes time, often months
Go deeper Get an SEO audit →We check exactly what changed and why
Sources
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