Google finished its spam update. What it means for your website

Google finished its September 2026 spam update in October, according to the monthly recap from Search Engine Roundtable. It is not the first and it will not be the last. But it comes at a time when Google has also changed its guidance on helpful content, and that tells us a lot about what will count in the coming months.

What happened

• The September spam update is complete. Google's update calendar shows it running from late September to early October.
• Google has not announced a core update. Some people expect one before the end of the year because they usually land near the holidays, but that is a forecast, not information from Google.
• The helpful content guidance was updated and now includes a warning about fake author information.

Invented authors: a risk not worth taking

Google's warning is clear: invented names, AI-generated author photos and credentials that do not exist make a page untrustworthy. If your blog has articles signed by an "expert" who does not exist, or a team of generated faces, now is the time to fix it.

The fix is simple and cheap: sign with the person who actually wrote it, with a line about that person's experience. In a small business, the real signature of whoever does the work is worth more than a polished profile.

Titles and headings are part of the content

The same guidance treats titles and headings as part of a page's main content: they summarise the topic and help readers decide whether to stay. Stuffing the title with repeated keywords helps nobody. A title that says clearly what the page offers does.

What to do this week

• Check whether any article on your site has an invented author or a generated author photo, and replace it with real information.
• Reread the titles of your main pages. Do they say what the page does, or are they full of keywords?
• Open Google Search Console and confirm your important pages are indexed. If only the home page shows up, it is worth investigating.
• If visits drop, compare the dates with the update before changing everything. Rushed changes can make things worse.

There are no tricks to please an update. What Google keeps repeating is what a good site already does: be clear, be truthful and serve whoever arrives. If you like, we can look at your site and tell you what to fix first.