Just when you thought that Google had a field day with big Core updates in March, May and December of 2024, the Big G ended the year with a bang by unleashing a fresh Spam update.
As the name implies, a spam update is fielded when Google feels the need to clean house and demote spammy search results that have started to prosper on its SERPs.
Based on the search giant’s announcement, the update started rolling out globally on December 24th. Google didn’t say when exactly it would wrap up, but noted that it should be done in a week or two.
So far, the impact seems to be minimal as it didn’t generate anywhere near the buzz that the March and May Core updates did. This is likely because spam updates only target websites that engage in activities that violate Google’s policies. Core updates, on the other hand, can impact even websites that follow Google’s rules to the letter.
That or maybe all the SEO hypebeasts are just out for the holidays.
In its spam update documentation, Google states that:
While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.
For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.
Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. 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.
In the case of a link spam update (an update that specifically deals with link spam), making changes might not generate an improvement. This is because when our systems remove the effects spammy links may have, any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost. Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.
It seems that even in the AI era, Google needs to deploy spam-clearing updates once in a while to fend off low-quality pages that have managed to rank for their target keywords.
What is Spam to Google?
Most people know spam as the gelatinous, meaty canned product. Others think of it as emails from African princes asking you to help them stash wealth into your bank account. To Google, however, spam refers to content and practices that attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. Often used by unscrupulous marketers and other internet unsavory types, spam can take a lot of different forms. These include but are not limited to:
- Keyword Stuffing. Overloading a webpage with repetitive keywords in an unnatural way to manipulate rankings.
- Cloaking. Showing different content to search engine crawlers than to human users to deceive ranking systems.
- Scraped Content. Copying and republishing content from other websites without adding any unique value.
- Link Schemes. Manipulative practices such as buying backlinks, exchanging links excessively, or using automated programs to create links.
- Malicious Practices. Hosting malware, phishing attempts, or other harmful activities that jeopardize user security.
- Auto-Generated Content. Using automated tools to generate low-quality or nonsensical content that lacks depth or relevance.
For Google, spam undermines the user experience by cluttering SERPs with irrelevant, low-quality, or harmful results. The company employs automated systems, such as SpamBrain, to detect and combat these practices. Periodic spam updates, like the December 2024 Spam Update, are deployed to improve these systems and ensure SERPs deliver high-quality, trustworthy results.
The Difference Between Spam Updates and Core Algorithm Updates
Google’s ranking ladder is a zero-sum game. Meaning, one website’s loss is another website’s gain. In this regard, it’s easy to understand why many novice SEOs tend to confuse spam updates with Core updates. Both tend to impact some websites negatively and both are periodic maintenance measures that Google performs to maintain the quality of its search results.
Of course, this notion isn’t entirely accurate. Spam and Core updates are similar but distinct maintenance measures that Google applies to its SERPs. They differ in intentions, scope and intensity. Specifically:
- Spam Updates. These are designed to identify and penalize websites that engage in manipulative or unethical practices violating Google’s spam policies. Examples include keyword stuffing, link schemes, cloaking, and auto-generated content. The goal is to remove low-quality, spammy sites from SERPs and enhance the overall user experience.
Think of it as your wife’s reaction when she discovers illicit chats with another woman on your favorite messaging app. You were caught doing something you shouldn’t be doing and ow it’s time to pay the price.
- Core Updates. These focus on improving Google’s understanding of content relevance, quality, and user intent. Core updates adjust how Google evaluates and ranks all websites, even those that comply fully with its guidelines.
Think back to when Google struck a deal with Reddit to use their data to train its AI models. Google gets exclusive access to all that sweet information while Reddit gets a ton of cash while receiving a major bump in search visibility. It’s not hard to surmise that recent Google updates played a major role in the resurgence of Reddit and other forums on the SERPs.
Think of it as being a good husband, yet you’re observing that your wife gets progressively cold and distant towards you. One day, she tells you she’s no longer in love with you and that she’s found someone else. It hurts but it can’t be helped.
Core updates are kind of the same thing. Google specifically says that if you’ve been negatively impacted by a core update, there may not be anything wrong with your website. It just might be that Google prefers to put other websites on top of the SERPs and move you down to see if it generates better user engagement signals.
Does This Update Target Link Spam?
Google did not specifically mention link spam and there hasn’t been much talk of it on big SEO forums. I personally doubt it is since Google has gotten really good at ignoring link spam. Besides, even if it was link related, it’s not like you can do much about it.
I say this since most link spam updates now seek to simply neutralize the value of illicit links that prop up a website on the SERPs. When these are devalued, it doesn’t matter if you have them removed or disavowed. The ranking benefits are gone either way, so your best recourse is to simply build new, cleaner links.
Of course, it’s a different matter when you get hit with a manual link penalty. In that scenario, it’s imperative that you remove or disavow spammy-looking backlinks to your webpages.
What to Do Next
If you haven’t observed any negative ranking movement for your website, there’s probably nothing to worry about. However, if you saw an abrupt decline in organic traffic during the past week or so, you might want to perform an audit of your website to see if you were impacted.
Most legitimate websites with good editorial policies are unlikely to get tagged by web spam penalties since their content is typically helpful and infused with E-E-A-T. However, if you’ve had a history of publishing large amounts of low-quality, redundant, automated or misleading content, you’ll want to do a thorough assessment of your content library.
If you’re running a big website that receives hundreds of thousands to millions of users pe month and you happen to host content created by external authors, you may also want to check if you may have incurred the wrath of Google’s new Site Reputation Abuse penalty. You can read more about it here.
