The August 2026 Spam Update is now live and will roll out over the next few days.
This is the third Spam Update of 2026 following on from the impactful March Spam Update and subsequent June Spam Update.
As is now tradition with these announcements, the August spam update was announced through the Google Search Central LinkedIn account which pointed users towards the Google Search Status Dashboard.
Today we released the August 2026 spam update to Google Search.
This is a normal spam update, and it will roll out for all languages and locations. The rollout may take a few days to complete.
We’ll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete.
August 2026 Spam Update Key Facts
What is a spam update?
Google Spam updates are algorithmic improvements to Google’s spam detection systems. Whilst Google is constantly making changes and improvements to their spam detection, a confirmed Google Spam update indicates an algorithmic shift intended to neutralise the impact of spam content at scale across all search results.
Historically, Google Core Updates have been the most impactful type of updates. However, over the last two years with the continued influx of spam – largely driven by AI content generation – we are now noticing that Spam Updates are more impactful across more search results than traditional core updates. Previous spam updates including the August 2025 and March 2026 spam updates have been two of the most impactful algorithm updates in recent years.
What to Expect During the August 2026 Spam Update
If history has taught us anything it is that a subdued update like the June 2026 Spam update is typically followed by a much more impactful one. Quiet updates can be an indication of testing signals at a smaller scale before being applied more broadly. As such, we are expecting the August spam update to be more impactful and have a broader impact than what we saw in June.
On-site spam examples
Off-site spam examples
What Should I Do Now?
Hold tight and wait. We do not recommend making any large changes whilst a spam update is going on.
Linking correlation and causation becomes extremely difficult when there are a lot of moving parts. The update is expected to take a few days to complete, we recommend waiting, observing, and trying to piece together what is happening and what is being targeted before making any major changes.
Note: We will update this page throughout the update with observations.
August 2026 Spam Update – Complete
Google updated the search status dashboard on at 1:49 a.m. PDT on August 21 2026 to confirm that the August 2026 Spam Update had finished.
So far, the latest spam update from Google has been – for one of a better word – sedate. Given we saw quite a mild spam update in March 2026, we were expecting this update to be characterised by more changes in the SERPs. Our observations across 100+ tracked websites across 30+ niches indicates that there has not been a lot of change to keywords tracked on page one.
Google has not updated their existing documentation around Spam policies since May 15, so we do not have a lot to go off.
It was widely reported on X and LinkedIn that the biggest changes came in the three days leading up to the confirmation. In spite of speculation, Google’s John Mueller was quick to shut down any notion that the updated happened before the official announcement.
The August 2026 Spam update was proceeded 34 days later by the September 2026 Google Spam Update.
History of Google Spam Updates
