Another Google Spam Update, One Year After the Volatility Began

The past year has been particularly unusual if you work in SEO—especially if you’re in the iGaming industry.

About a year ago, Google started talking about releasing more frequent algorithm updates. On June 30, 2025, we got a Core Update, and since then we’ve seen a major update roughly every seven weeks. Some have been relatively small, while others have had a much bigger impact.

If you look at how websites in our industry have performed throughout these updates, you’ll notice that almost everyone has experienced both gains and losses. What’s frustrating for many SEOs is that, when you zoom out and look at the entire period, there aren’t really any clear winners or losers.

I’ve spent some time looking at a number of larger websites, and the pattern becomes quite obvious. Affiliate sites that saw strong growth during the second half of 2025 have generally been trending downward throughout spring 2026. Meanwhile, many of the sites that lost visibility during autumn 2025 have recovered significantly this year.

Then there are the websites that were crushed by Google’s Spam Update in August 2025. Those sites haven’t received much mercy from Google since.

So the obvious question is: what can we expect from this latest Spam Update?

Spam Updates Can Be Huge—or Barely Noticeable

The interesting thing about Google’s Spam Updates is that their impact can vary dramatically. Some barely move the needle, while others completely reshape an industry.

It probably depends on what Google is targeting with each update.

We don’t know exactly how these updates work internally, but from the outside it often looks as though certain Spam Updates are aimed directly at specific tactics. Sometimes that appears to be links, expired domains, or other common SEO strategies. Other times, Google seems to be targeting something entirely different.

Whenever Spam Updates focus on links, the iGaming industry tends to feel the effects more than most.

It may be that Google has become better at identifying which links are genuinely editorial and which are artificially created. Or perhaps it’s detecting broader patterns that correlate with manipulative link building.

Many believe that’s exactly what happened during the August 2025 Spam Update, which wiped out a number of affiliate sites that had dominated the search results for years.

The irony, however, is that if you spend any time on LinkedIn, you’ll see plenty of people complaining about Google’s search results being flooded with short-term spam—expired domains, parasite SEO, AI-generated content, and similar tactics. In many cases, these tactics are far more aggressive than traditional affiliate websites that, at least in theory, violated Google’s guidelines by purchasing links.

Everyone wants Google to clean up the search results—just not if their own site gets caught in the process.

What Can We Expect From This Spam Update?

It’s difficult to say.

Google has stated that the rollout may take several days. Historically, these updates have often rolled out fairly quickly, which could suggest that the overall impact will be somewhat smaller.

We’ve also seen reports that search volatility began before Google officially announced the update, which is another pattern we’ve observed several times before.

Here are a few areas Google may be targeting:

AI-scaled content
Spammy link networks
Paid links

At this point, though, it’s mostly speculation.

The best thing you can do during any major Google update is probably to step away from your rank tracker, go outside, enjoy the sunshine, and wait to see where things settle.

Will Another Core Update Follow?

Looking at Google’s historical update patterns, it’s actually more likely that this Spam Update marks the end of the rollout cycle following the May Core Update.

Google hasn’t released a major update in July since 2022—unless you count the June 30, 2025 Core Update as technically being a July update.

As always, we’ll continue monitoring the rollout and publish an update once we have a clearer picture of what’s actually changing.

Another Google Spam Update, One Year After the Volatility Began

Spam Updates Can Be Huge—or Barely Noticeable

What Can We Expect From This Spam Update?

Will Another Core Update Follow?

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