Google has confirmed that its September 2026 spam update finished rolling out on 8 October, 13 days and 16 hours after it began on 24 September, making it by far the longest of the four spam updates the company has run in 2026.
“The rollout was complete as of October 8, 2026,” Google said in a note on its Search Status Dashboard, posted at 01:37 PDT on 8 October. The dashboard lists the update as an incident affecting Ranking that began at 09:15 on 24 September and ended at 01:00 on 8 October, US/Pacific time.
The update was not limited to any one market. “Released the September 2026 spam update, which applies globally and to all languages,” Google’s launch note on the dashboard read on 24 September. The same note said: “The rollout may take up to two weeks to complete.”
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Far Longer Than the Earlier 2026 Spam Updates
Google’s ranking update history puts the September rollout at 13 days, 16 hours. None of the three spam updates before it in 2026 ran for as long as three days. The March update, which began on 24 March, took 19 hours and 30 minutes; the June update, from 24 June, took 2 days and 1 hour; and the August update, from 18 August, took 2 days and 16 hours, according to the same history.
The September rollout was still well short of the August 2025 spam update, which ran from 26 August to 22 September 2025, about 27 days, Search Engine Journal reported.
Google also ran two core updates in 2026, of 12 days and 4 hours in March and 11 days and 21 hours in May, its ranking update history shows.
The longer timetable was flagged on the day of the launch. John Mueller of Google confirmed on 24 September that the rollout would take longer than earlier ones, Search Engine Roundtable reported. “Yes, it’s likely to take longer than some of the previous ones,” he said.
What Google Has Said
Google also announced the update on LinkedIn at the launch. “This is a normal spam update, and it will roll out for all languages and locations,” the company said, according to Search Engine Roundtable.
Google’s documentation explains that its automated spam systems run constantly, and that the company calls a notable improvement to those systems a spam update. SpamBrain is its AI-based spam-prevention system, according to Google Search Central. The page, last updated on 10 December 2025, states: “Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.”
Google would not say what percentage of queries or searches were affected, Search Engine Roundtable reported on 24 September.
Reported Ranking Movement
In its report on 8 October, Search Engine Roundtable documented impact dates of 25 to 27 September, 30 September and 4 to 6 October. The outlet noted that it could not be sure Google had run no other update in that window.
Still No Word on the Target
Neither Google’s spam updates page nor the two dashboard notes for the rollout say what the September update addressed, or why it took longer than the earlier 2026 spam updates, Search Engine Journal reported.
Google had announced no further ranking update as of 19 October, according to its Search Status Dashboard. Further coverage of search and the web is filed in prw’s Technology archive.
Sources: Google Search Status Dashboard, “September 2026 spam update” (https://status.search.google.com/incidents/XhUDXP7A67iHCD2kmbVu); Google Search Status Dashboard, ranking update history (https://status.search.google.com/summary?e=2); Google Search Central, “Google Search spam updates and your site” (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/spam-updates); Search Engine Journal, “Google Completes September 2026 Spam Update After Nearly 14 Days”, 8 October 2026 (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-september-2026-spam-update-complete/592283/); Search Engine Roundtable, “Google September 2026 Spam Update Has Finished Rolling Out”, 8 October 2026 (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-september-2026-spam-update-done-42235.html); Search Engine Roundtable, “Google September 2026 Spam Update Has Been Unleashed”, 24 September 2026 (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-september-2026-spam-update-42163.html)
Photo: Chad Davis, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Google’s data centre at Council Bluffs, Iowa, from the air in February 2017. A general view of Google infrastructure; the photograph is not connected to the spam update.
