If you own a business and have noticed your website traffic wobble over the last fortnight, please take a gentle breath before you start changing things. There is a good chance you have simply been standing in the path of a very large Google clean up.
What actually happened with the Google spam update
Google began rolling out its September 2026 spam update on 24 September. Google’s Search Status Dashboard confirmed the rollout was complete on 8 October, after roughly 13 days and 16 hours. It applies globally and to all languages. That is notably longer than the spam updates earlier this year, which settled in between one and three days each.
It is worth being honest about what we do not yet know. Google has not published a specific target for this update, and it described it as a standard spam update. What we can say is that Google’s published spam policies cover link spam, scaled content abuse and other manipulative tactics, and that its AI based spam prevention system, SpamBrain, is improved from time to time to catch new types of spam.
Why backlink spam sits at the heart of this
Backlinks remain one of the strongest signals in the link graph, which is exactly why they are so heavily abused. Google’s link spam policy covers bought links, link exchange schemes and automated link building. Where SpamBrain detects patterns such as unnatural link velocity, repetitive anchor text distribution, or clusters of referring domains that exist only to pass link equity, the usual outcome is that those links are neutralised, so they quietly stop counting. Google’s own documentation also notes that ranking benefit lost when spammy links are discounted cannot simply be won back. That is why we treat link building as a quality exercise rather than a volume one.
In plain terms: if part of your visibility was being propped up by links Google now treats as noise, your traffic can dip even though nothing on your own site has changed.
The wider picture: automation at scale
There is a second thread worth mentioning, and we offer it as context rather than as a confirmed cause. Cyber criminals are increasingly using automated tooling and generative AI to run phishing and spam campaigns at far lower cost and far greater scale than before. The same economics push low quality links outward across the web. We have seen this across every sector we work with at Phoenix: a noticeable rise in spam backlinks pointing at client sites, mostly from low authority, high toxicity domains. Google has not said this update was aimed at phishing or cyber crime, but any search engine defending its index in this climate is facing the same flood of machine generated junk.
Should you worry about toxic links pointing at you?
Usually, less than you might fear. Google has long said it is good at ignoring spam links, and most sites do not need to disavow. Where it does matter is when the volume is unusual, when the links sit alongside a history of paid or exchanged links, or when a manual action appears in Search Console. The sensible approach is to monitor, not panic.
What we are doing at Phoenix
We are deploying AI inside the agency to spot this pattern early: automated monitoring of new referring domains, scoring for toxicity and anomalous link velocity, and flagging anything that needs a human decision, so that we can deal with spam as it arrives rather than weeks later for our clients. It sits alongside our SEO and search work and our generative engine optimisation services, because a clean link profile helps visibility in both traditional results and AI search.
What to do now
- Compare like with like: look at the same weekdays before 24 September and after 8 October in Google Search Console and your analytics, and annotate the rollout dates. Our guide to SEO metrics explains which numbers matter most.
- Check Search Console for Manual actions and Security issues. Spam updates send no notification, so a manual action is the only message Google will give you.
- Filter by page or section to see whether the drop is concentrated on particular templates, pages or link heavy content. A technical SEO review can help pinpoint this.
- Review your backlink profile for sudden spikes in low authority referring domains and any links you may have paid for in the past.
- Give it time. Google says its systems can take months to learn that a site now complies, so avoid knee jerk changes while the dust settles.
If you would like a calm, expert second pair of eyes on your traffic and link profile, the team at Phoenix Media Marketing would be glad to help. You can start with our AI visibility audit or get in touch about SEO support.
