Spam update hit a second time on September 30

Google's September spam update appears to have hit again on September 30. A spam update is a ranking change aimed at sites that break Google's spam rules, and this one is rolling out in stages rather than all at once.

Glenn Gabe says several site owners contacted him reporting big drops dated exactly to September 30. The detail that matters is that those sites were fine before that. They came through the earlier part of the rollout with no visible damage, then lost rankings in one day.

Barry Schwartz described it as possibly the second wave of the same update. Gabe says the rollout could take two weeks to finish, which we covered when the update started.

What this means if your traffic dropped

If your rankings fell on or around September 30, this is a plausible explanation. It also means a quiet first week was not a clean bill of health. Updates that roll out in stages can reach sites late, so a site that looked unaffected can still move once a later stage lands.

It also means the opposite is true. A drop during an unfinished rollout is not necessarily final. Gabe says the update may still be running, so numbers can keep moving while it completes.

What to do

Open Google Search Console, click Performance, and set the date range to compare the last 28 days. Look for whether your clicks fall off a cliff on a single day near September 30 or drift down slowly. A sharp single day drop points at the update. A slow slide usually points at something else.

If you see that sharp drop, do not start deleting pages yet. Wait for Google to confirm the rollout is complete, then check which pages lost rankings. Spam updates target things like spun template pages, near duplicate pages with one word swapped, and thin pages made in bulk that answer nothing. A page written once, by a person, for a real question, is not the target.

If nothing changed on your site, do nothing.

Glenn Gabe

@glenngabe

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several site owners reaching out seeing specific big drops right on 9/30