Spam Update Still Driving the Weather
The storm that started Thursday, September 24 is still the main SEO story today. Google’s September 2026 spam update is rolling out globally, across all languages, and Google says it may take up to two weeks to finish. Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and Search Engine Roundtable all point to the same thing: this is the fourth confirmed spam update of 2026, following March, June, and August.
Rankings are reacting. Today’s partial volatility score is 6.9/10, with some providers flashing much hotter, including SEMrush at 9.4/10, Serpstat at 10/10, and Wincher at 10/10. The last completed score, 7.2/10 on September 25, matters more than today’s partial reading. The trend is climbing, not calming.
What Google Is Saying
Google’s Search Status Dashboard lists the September spam update under ranking systems, while its spam update guidance says these updates improve automated spam detection systems, including SpamBrain, Google’s AI-based spam prevention system. Sites hit after a spam update should review Google’s spam policies, but recovery may take months, not days, if systems need to relearn that the site is compliant.
Search Console Gets More Useful
Google also added web multimodal Search performance reporting in Search Console on September 24. In plain English, site owners can now see traffic from searches that start with an image, including Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads, and Chrome’s “Search this image.” That is especially useful for ecommerce, local businesses, publishers, and anyone relying on product or visual content.
What to Do
Do not panic-edit your whole site during rollout. Check Search Console, separate normal pages from suspicious thin or scaled content, and watch whether drops line up with spam-prone sections. If visual discovery matters, check the new multimodal filter and improve product images, captions, alt text, and page context.
