August Spam Update Released

[newcustomeroffer]

Perhaps the post-core update volatility was in some way due to this: https://x.com/googlesearchc/status/1960372976622227834

In any case, the latest google spam update is now rolling out and may take a 'few' weeks to roll out.

[chrisfortis]

Useful article on this topic from Search Engine Roundtable: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ate-40008.html

[universal4]

What I find most interesting about the spam policies is that they still 1st cloaking first, as if it is so bad, and yet they never stop the newspapers or news organizations from surviving on cloaking.

Example: If you search for a specific news article, and the first few results go to say a newspaper or news site, and then the article is behind the paywall, IMO that is in fact cloaking fraud right there.

The only way it can happen is when the site shows google content the visitor can not read, which is in fact the definition of cloaking.

Main takeaway point is that google is not planning on applying any rules or sanctions evenly to everyone. We can expect the same when it comes to expired domain abuse, link abuse, scraping, site reputation abuse etc etc.

Rick
Universal4

[wonderpunter]

Wont make a difference, I don't even use google anymore and get eveything from Chatgpt.. wont be long before everyone else does. instead of givign the answer its just a mash of shopping, reddit, Quora, Forbes, NTTimes, more parasite and some hacked sites..

[eenzoo]

I completely lost track on the updates. Results looking absolutely random to me.
Couple of my websites (really spammy stuff) gaining traffic now, while a reasonable site went from 3000 daily impressions to zero with last 3 days.

[casionmark]

Takeover by spam sites going on right now - lots of re-purposed domains in the top 20. More than last week.

[wonderpunter]

Takeover by spam sites going on right now - lots of re-purposed domains in the top 20. More than last week.

The spam update really means more of it. Since covid every update has rewarded them

[newcustomeroffer]

The update has been confirmed as complete: https://status.search.google.com/inc...y6E9rZsmfq82xt

Anybody see anything tangible from this? Pretty quiet from what I've observed.

[chaumi]

I didn't see anything overly positive or definitely negative (across 3 sites), even with that (fairly wild) impressions drop stuff in the middle which may have muddied it for some. But we know the reason for that, and evidence suggests anyone that took an impressions hit but clicks remained fairly constant or up should be fairly safe in assuming they hadn't taken a knock from this spam update.

[iso2009]

Some types of content were punished hard. My inner pages are gone on a certain site, but I still retain many positions for the homepage.

It's all about authority, because other sites with the same type of content were not punished. I guess it's a shuffle, I won in the June update, now I'm hit with the spam update and so on, I'm sick of it

Impressions were generated by the SEO tools scraping the serps 24/7. You will likely see a big increase in CTR once the scrapers are limited now. To be honest, I kind of like that now we can really see the true impressions - until scrapers will find a way scrape again all ten pages in a cheaper way.

Ahrefs is planning to analyze just the top 10 results

[Suomicasi]

It seems to be quite volatile in many markets, sites, and industries. Interesting to see what the next update brings.

[wonderpunter]

results are worse year by yeart and google makes record profits so you can probably guess. Thier results are bad, AI is mediocre the more people start ti use Chatgpt the more the realise they can find what they need.

[topcaz]

Do you know when is the next Google update planned?

[eenzoo]

Its not like that u attend the common Google updates by default anymore. You have to login into you GSC, move to "Settings", move to "Updates", move to "Request Update", from there you can schedule 3 private updates of serps of your choice. So three GEOs by example. They plan from January 2026 a paid plan where you can buy serp positions. But they kept details unclear yet.

[wonderpunter]

Do you know when is the next Google update planned?

There should have been many updates this year, but hardly any.. They are making record earnings with the worst results in history. The AI is behind the competition. So perhaps they are going to rinse it until the end.

[newcustomeroffer]

There should have been many updates this year, but hardly any.

It's been really quiet this year but then again there were 2 core updates later last year, one around now and another in December so we'll see what delights the next few weeks have for us.

[newcustomeroffer]

Barry Schwartz has been reporting on a google update which started around the 7th November: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ov7-40401.html

There hasn't been anything confirmed by Google but there's seems to be enough chatter around this to suggest that something's going on.

[wonderpunter]

Barry Schwartz has been reporting on a google update which started around the 7th November: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ov7-40401.html

There hasn't been anything confirmed by Google but there's seems to be enough chatter around this to suggest that something's going on.

Search console is delayed.. and its prime shopping season soon so i would expect one to land this week.