Google completed another global spam update in August.
Whenever this happens, I know what comes next.
Business owners see rankings move and immediately start wondering what needs to be changed.
- More content?
- Different keywords?
- More backlinks?
- Rewrite the website?
My first reaction would be considerably less dramatic.
I’d wait.
Google’s August 2026 spam update began on 18 August and finished on 21 August, taking just under three days to roll out globally and across all languages.
Google didn’t announce a new spam policy alongside it.
That matters.
Google’s own guidance says its automated spam-detection systems operate continuously, with occasional significant improvements released as spam updates.
So rather than asking, “What does Google want me to change?”, I think SMEs should be asking a more uncomfortable question:
Have we been doing anything primarily to manipulate Google in the first place?
Google’s existing spam policies are remarkably clear.
They cover practices such as;
- buying or manipulating links,
- creating doorway pages,
- publishing large volumes of low-value content,
- scraping material from other websites,
- keyword stuffing and
- using established websites to publish unrelated third-party content primarily because the domain already has ranking authority.
There’s a common thread running through most of those practices.
They’re designed for the search engine before they’re designed for the customer.
That’s where I think SMEs can learn something from this update.
I’ve never believed good SEO should involve trying to outsmart Google.
If I optimise a service page, I want Google to understand what the business does.
But I also want a prospective customer landing on that page to understand exactly the same thing.
= If I publish an article, it should answer a genuine question.
= If I build a location page, there should be a legitimate reason for that page to exist.
= If I acquire a link, ideally somebody could actually follow it and discover the business.
Google explicitly recommends creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
That sounds almost embarrassingly simple.
Yet the SEO industry has spent years finding increasingly complicated ways around it.
I’m not suggesting every ranking decline following this update means a website has been spamming Google.
Search rankings fluctuate for many reasons, and correlation isn’t proof of a penalty.
But if rankings have moved substantially, now is a sensible time to review Search Console and compare performance before and after the rollout.
Then look at the website itself.
Not for another trick.
Look for things you wouldn’t create today if Google didn’t exist.
- Pages written only to capture slightly different keywords.
- Near-identical suburb pages.
- Old articles providing very little information.
- Questionable backlinks.
- Copied or lightly rewritten content.
That’s the audit I’d be doing.
Because Google’s algorithms will continue changing.
My preferred SEO strategy remains remarkably boring:
Build a website that’s genuinely useful to the people you’re trying to turn into customers.
That’s much harder for an algorithm update to take away.
References
Google Search Central. Google Search spam updates and your site. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/spam-updates
Google Search Central. Spam policies for Google Web Search. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies
Google Search Central. Google Search Essentials. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials
Search Engine Journal, 21 August 2026. Google Finishes Rolling Out The August 2026 Spam Update. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-begins-rolling-out-the-august-2026-spam-update/586301/