June 26, 2026
After two days, the June 2026 spam update, is complete.
The June 2026 spam update was a typical update, which applied to all languages and locations.
Spam updates are released periodically. They aim to improve Google’s search spam detection systems and penalise websites that violate Google’s spam policies. This includes any tactic used to manipulate the search engine into ranking content highly, such as cloaking, hidden text, scraping, and link spamming.
This was the second spam update of the year, following the March 2026 spam update, and the fifth algorithm update of the year.
Here’s a timeline of spam updates released in the last few years:
Spam updates are designed to punish sites practicing spammy tactics - if you were playing by the rules, you should be safe.
That being said, the SERPs were volatile and many sites lost traffic and rankings during the rollout.
Lily Ray noticed signifcant changes just before the spam update officially dropped:
Glenn Gabe noted on X that the gambling niche in particular seemed to be impacted:
Many people's sites were negatively affected by the update.
Paper responded to Google Search Central's X post:
And people were questioning how effective spam updates really are, with manipulative tactics still flying under the radar despite two spam updates this year.
Len also commented on X:
As usual, there were no specific details regarding this spam update. However, if you're not in violation of any of Google's spam policies, you should be okay. Things may remain volatile for a little while so give it a week or so before checking your analytics.
If you are worried about how this update has impacted your site, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.
