Spam Update Still Drives the Forecast
Google’s September 2026 spam update is the main weather system over search. It began September 24 at 9:15 a.m. PDT, applies globally and to all languages, and may take up to two weeks to finish, according to Google’s Search Status Dashboard. Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal both frame this as the fourth spam update of 2026, while Search Engine Roundtable notes the longer rollout is unusual compared with the shorter March, June, and August spam updates.
Rankings Are Moving, But Unevenly
The volatility picture is messy. Rankings were fairly calm earlier in September, then turned choppy from September 17-20, cooled briefly, and climbed again from September 23-26, peaking at 7.6/10 yesterday. Today’s 6.4/10 is partial, so don’t treat it as final. Search Engine Roundtable also reported noticeable ranking swings around September 23-24, right before and during the spam update announcement.
Search Console Gets More Visual
Google also rolled out a new multimodal search filter in Search Console, showing traffic from image-led searches like Google Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads, and Chrome “Search this image.” That matters for retailers, local businesses, publishers, and anyone whose products or places are discovered visually. Search Engine Journal notes the catch: you get page-level data, but not the exact query text.
What to Do
- Do not panic-edit pages during the rollout.
- Check Search Console for drops starting September 24 onward.
- Review thin, copied, auto-generated, doorway, or deceptive content.
- Improve product images, filenames, alt text, and visual uniqueness.
Bottom line: this is not calm weather. Clean sites should mostly monitor, but sites leaning on spammy shortcuts may be in the strike zone.
