Google algorithm updates in 2026: every one announced so far, and the spam update happening now

The short version

• A Google spam update is rolling out now. It started on 24 September 2026, "applies globally and to all languages", and had not finished when we checked on 1 October.
• Seven Google algorithm updates have been announced in 2026: four spam updates, two core updates and one Discover update that Google launched for English-language users in the US.
• A spam update is aimed at sites breaking Google’s spam policies. If you have never bought links or published pages just to rank, it is very probably not about you.
• A core update is broad, and Google says "most sites don't need to worry about core updates".
• Do not judge a traffic change mid-rollout. Wait until the update has finished, then compare like with like.
• If a person at Google has acted against your site, Search Console tells you. Check the Manual actions report before you change anything.

Every Google algorithm update in 2026

These are all the ranking updates on Google’s Search Status Dashboard since December 2025, newest first. The start dates and the durations are Google’s own; the right-hand column quotes what Google said when each one began.

Two things this list does not tell you. First, it only contains the updates Google chooses to announce. Google’s own guidance says it also makes "smaller core updates", and that "These updates are not announced because they aren't widely noticeable". Second, a long rollout is not new. September’s is the first spam update this year to be given up to two weeks, but the August 2025 spam update took 26 days, 15 hours, by the same dashboard’s figures.

What a Google spam update is

Google’s description is short: "While Google's automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work." When it does, it calls that a spam update. The system doing the work is called SpamBrain, which Google describes as "our AI-based spam-prevention system".

What counts as spam is set out in Google’s spam policies, which name sixteen practices: cloaking, doorway abuse, expired domain abuse, hacked content, hidden text and link abuse, keyword stuffing, link spam, machine-generated traffic, malicious practices, misleading functionality, scaled content abuse, scraping, the site reputation policy, sneaky redirects, thin affiliation and user-generated spam. Most are deliberate tricks. The exception is hacked content, which is usually done to a site rather than by it.

The one that catches ordinary businesses is link spam, usually bought. Five days into this update, two emails reached our inbox within seven minutes of each other, from two different names, word for word identical, each offering links on other people’s websites. If you have ever bought links like that, Google’s warning is blunt: when its systems remove the effect of spammy links, "any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost", and "Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained."

What a Google core update is

"Several times a year, Google makes significant, broad changes to our search algorithms and systems." Those are core updates. Google says they are "broad in nature" and "don't target specific sites or individual web pages", and adds: "In general, most sites don't need to worry about core updates and may not even realize one has happened."

A core update reshuffles results because the rest of the web has changed, not because your site did anything wrong. A page that moves down has not necessarily been judged "bad", in Google’s own restaurant-list comparison; other pages have simply moved up.

What to do if your traffic changed this week

1. Check whether the update has finished. The Search Status Dashboard shows the start and end date of every announced update. While it is still rolling out, the numbers are still moving.
2. Wait, then compare like with like. For core updates Google recommends "waiting at least a full week after a core update completes before analyzing your site in Search Console", and then comparing that week with the week before the update started.
3. Look at the size of the change. For a small drop, such as from position 2 to 4, Google says "There's no need to take drastic action".
4. Open the Manual actions report in Search Console. A manual action is when "a human reviewer at Google has determined that pages on the site are not compliant with Google's spam policies", and Google says "If your site is affected by a manual action, we will notify you in the Manual actions report and in the Search Console message center."
5. If it was the spam update, read the spam policies. Google: "Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those." Recovery is slow: "Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies."
6. Avoid quick fixes. Google specifically warns against changes "like removing some page element because you heard it was bad for SEO".

One UK detail: the new EEA exemption does not apply here

On 28 August 2026 Google changed how one of its spam policies is enforced, after discussion with the European Commission. From 30 August, a manual action under its site reputation policy works differently depending on where the searcher is. "For users inside the EEA, the impact of the manual action won't apply." But "For users outside the EEA, a manual action regarding our site reputation policy will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected."

The UK is not in the European Economic Area, so British searchers get the stricter treatment. It only matters if your site hosts other people’s content in order to rank, which few small businesses do, but it is a reminder that EU relief does not automatically reach the UK.

What we saw on our own site, so far

We looked at our own Search Console data either side of 24 September. From 10 to 23 September our pages averaged 129 impressions a day in Google web search; from 24 to 27 September, the last day Search Console had data for when we checked on 29 September, they averaged 182.

By Google’s own method we cannot read anything into that yet. The update has not finished, four days is far too short, and we publish a new post almost every day, which moves the numbers on its own. We will look again a full week after the update completes, which is what Google recommends, and say what we find.

What argues the other way

• Nobody outside Google knows what this spam update targets. Google has not said. Anyone who tells you precisely what September’s update was "about" is guessing.
• The dashboard is not the whole story. Google says it is "continually making updates", most of them unannounced. A traffic change in a week with no announced update can still be Google.
• Updates are not the only thing moving your clicks. AI Overviews change where people click without any update being announced, as we found when we looked at whether you can turn off Google AI Overviews.

Sources, and what we checked

• Google’s Search Status Dashboard, ranking history, for every start date and duration in the table, and the dashboard’s own data feed for the wording Google used when each update began.
• Google Search Central: Google Search spam updates and your site, Spam policies for Google web search and Google Search's core updates and your website.
• Search Console Help: Manual actions report.
• Google Search Central Blog, Update to the Site Reputation Policy, 28 August 2026.
• Our own figures come from the Search Console API for www.lolasquared.com, web search only.
• All pages were read in full on 29 September 2026 and read again on 1 October 2026, the day this was published; none had changed. Every quotation above was tested automatically against the text both times.