Google released the September 2026 spam update on 24 September and finished rolling it out on 7 October (US Pacific time). It took 13 days and 16 hours, far longer than the earlier spam updates this year.

If your traffic moved between those dates, this guide explains what Google has confirmed, what it hasn’t, how to tell whether the update hit you, and what to do next.

Key facts at a glance

Detail	What Google confirmed
Started	24 September 2026
Completed	7 October 2026 (US Pacific)
Duration	13 days, 16 hours
Scope	Global, all languages
Target	Not specified; described as a normal spam update

All dates come from Google’s Search Status Dashboard ranking history, which is the only place to rely on for official update timing.

How it compares with other 2026 updates

Update	Started	Duration
September 2026 spam update	24 Sep	13 days, 16 hours
August 2026 spam update	18 Aug	2 days, 16 hours
June 2026 spam update	24 Jun	2 days, 1 hour
May 2026 core update	21 May	11 days, 21 hours
March 2026 core update	27 Mar	12 days, 4 hours
March 2026 spam update	24 Mar	19 hours, 30 minutes

Four spam updates in one year is a clear signal. Google is updating its spam detection often, and the September rollout ran about five times longer than the August one.

Google didn’t explain the longer rollout. Treat any claim about the reason as speculation, including claims you’ll see that it “targeted” one specific tactic.

What is a Google spam update?

Google runs automated spam detection all the time. A spam update is a notable improvement to those systems, including SpamBrain, its AI-based spam prevention system.

According to Google’s page on spam updates, sites that break its spam policies may rank lower or drop out of results entirely.

A spam update is not the same as a core update. Core updates reassess overall content quality and relevance, while spam updates target sites that break specific spam policies.

How to tell if the update affected your site

1. Check the dates. In Search Console, open Performance and compare 24 September to 7 October with the weeks before. A drop that starts inside that window is worth investigating.
2. Look for a pattern. Note which pages and queries lost clicks. A site-wide drop points to a different cause than a few pages slipping.
3. Check Manual actions. Spam updates are algorithmic, but it’s worth confirming you have no manual action in the Security & Manual Actions report.
4. Rule out other causes. Seasonality, tracking changes, site migrations and technical errors can all look like an update hit.

Small day-to-day movement during a rollout is normal. Judge the impact a week or two after completion, not while the update is still running.

The link spam angle

Google hasn’t said this update targeted links. Even so, link schemes remain one of the most common reasons sites lose visibility after spam updates, so your backlink profile deserves a check.

Google’s spam update guidance makes an important point about links. When spammy links are neutralised, any ranking benefit they gave is lost and can’t be won back by changing your site.

Review your profile for these warning signs:

• Paid links that pass ranking credit without a sponsored or nofollow attribute (see Google’s guidance on qualifying outbound links).
• Large numbers of guest posts on unrelated “write for us” sites.
• Repeated exact-match commercial anchor text.
• Links from networks of sites that exist mainly to sell links.

New to this? Our guide to what backlinks are and what makes a good one explains the difference between safe and risky links.

Back button hijacking: the newest spam policy

In April 2026 Google added back button hijacking to its spam policies. It covers sites that interfere with the browser’s back button, for example by sending users to pages they never visited or showing unwanted ads.

Enforcement began on 15 June 2026, after a two-month grace period. Sites that break it can face manual actions or automated demotion.

If you use aggressive ad scripts, exit pop-ups or redirect tools, test your back button behaviour on mobile and desktop now.

What to do if your rankings dropped

1. Don’t panic or make sweeping changes. Confirm the cause first, using the checks above.

2. Fix genuine policy problems. Remove or qualify paid links, stop manipulative link building, and fix any spammy on-site behaviour.

3. Strengthen what Google rewards. Focus on helpful, people-first content and earn editorial links from relevant publications through digital PR and genuine guest posting.

4. Be patient. Google says its systems need to “learn over a period of months that the site complies”, so recovery is rarely quick.

5. Request reconsideration only for manual actions. Algorithmic changes don’t use reconsideration requests.

How to stay safe in future spam updates

• Earn links from relevant sites with real readers, not bulk packages.
• Label paid placements and use sponsored or nofollow where links are paid.
• Keep anchor text natural and varied.
• Audit your backlinks monthly with Search Console and a tool from our best link building tools list.
• Ask any agency the questions in our link building agency checklist before you hire.

Frequently asked questions

When did the September 2026 spam update finish?

It completed on 7 October 2026 (US Pacific time), after starting on 24 September.

What did the September 2026 spam update target?

Google didn’t say. It called it a normal spam update that applies globally and in all languages.

Was there a Google update in October 2026?

As of 20 October, Google’s status dashboard showed no confirmed October update. The most recent core update was May 2026.

How long does recovery from a spam update take?

Usually months. Google’s systems need time to see that a site now follows its policies.

Need a second opinion on your links?

Spam updates reward one thing over time: links and content that would exist even if search engines didn’t. That’s the standard behind good off-page SEO and the way Linkuild places clients on real publications.

If you’re unsure whether your backlink profile is safe, contact Linkuild and we’ll take a look.

Social backlinking sounds like an easy SEO win: put your link on every social profile and post, and watch rankings climb. The reality is more modest, but social links still have a useful place in a sensible strategy.

This guide explains what social backlinks are, what they actually do for SEO, and how to use them without wasting time.

What are social backlinks?

Social backlinks are links to your website from social platforms. They include profile links on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, plus links shared in posts, comments and community threads such as Reddit or Quora.

They’re easy to create, which is exactly why they work differently from editorial links on independent publications.

Do social backlinks help SEO?

Not directly in the way editorial links do. Most social platforms mark outbound links as nofollow or ugc, which tells search engines not to treat them as endorsements. Google explains these attributes in its guidance on qualifying outbound links.

So a profile link won’t pass the ranking value a link inside a respected article does. Treat anyone selling “1,000 social backlinks” as a red flag rather than a shortcut.

That doesn’t make social links useless. Their value is indirect, and it’s real.

The indirect benefits of social backlinking

Discovery. Shared links can help new pages get noticed and visited sooner, especially when people engage with the post.

Referral traffic. A link in a popular post or community thread sends real visitors, and real visitors can become customers.

Earned links downstream. When journalists, bloggers and creators see your content shared, some will cite it on their own sites, and those are the editorial links that move rankings.

Brand signals. Consistent, credible profiles help search engines and AI tools connect your brand to its official channels, as we explain in brand mentions are becoming the new backlinks.

How to build social backlinks the right way

1. Complete your core profiles with your website link, consistent business name and a clear description.
2. Link profiles to your site so the connection runs both ways.
3. Share content worth sharing: original data, useful guides and tools travel further than announcements.
4. Join real conversations and link only when it genuinely helps the reader.
5. Repurpose coverage. When you earn a media placement, share it.

What to avoid

• Buying bulk social bookmarks or profile links.
• Spamming links into comments and unrelated groups.
• Creating dozens of empty profiles just to host a link.
• Expecting social links to replace editorial links.

These tactics waste time at best and damage your reputation at worst, and at scale they can fall under Google’s spam policies.

Where social backlinks fit in your SEO

Think of social links as part of off-page SEO beyond backlinks: they support visibility, trust and discovery, while editorial links do the heavy lifting for rankings.

To track the links you have, see our guide to the best link building tools. For the bigger picture, start with our link building fundamentals guide.

Frequently asked questions

Are social media backlinks dofollow?

Mostly not. Major platforms usually mark outbound links as nofollow or ugc, so they pass little or no direct ranking value.

Do social signals affect Google rankings?

Likes and shares aren’t a direct ranking factor. Social activity helps indirectly through traffic, discovery and the editorial links it can lead to.

Should I still build social backlinks?

Yes, but proportionately. Complete your main profiles and share good content, then put most of your effort into earning editorial links.

Social links plus editorial links

Social backlinking is worth doing well and quickly, then moving on. The links that move rankings come from relevant publications that choose to reference you.

Linkuild helps brands earn those placements across 880+ vetted publications. Contact us for the publication list.

AI tools decide what to say about your brand mostly from what other sites say about you. Brand mentions now track AI visibility more closely than raw link counts, so here’s how to earn them.

Picture the scene. A prospect asks ChatGPT which tool to buy in your category, and the answer names three brands with confident summaries. None of them is yours, even though you outrank two of them on Google.

More buyers now start their research inside AI tools, so the shortlist can form before your sales team hears about the opportunity. What decides whether you make it is increasingly how often, and how credibly, the wider web talks about you.

The numbers behind the shift

The data point that started this conversation comes from Ahrefs. Its study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions correlated with AI Overview visibility roughly three times more strongly than backlinks did.

Brands in the top quartile for web mentions also earned far more AI Overview citations than those below them.

Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse research points the same way, finding that earned media makes up around 84% of the sources AI tools cite across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Paid and advertorial content made up a tiny share.

Why AI systems trust what others say

Language models learn from human text, and human text has a long habit of trusting outside voices over a sales pitch. Buyer trust and machine trust now point at the same place: media coverage.

When your product is named and recommended across credible publications, review sites, communities and video, you become the consensus answer. No page on your own domain can achieve that alone.

That creates a flywheel paid media can’t match. Each earned story adds to the signals AI models read, making your brand more likely to be cited next time.

Unlinked mentions: money left on the table

People mention your brand without linking all the time. A podcast page names you, a “tools we use” roundup lists you, or a news article quotes your founder and forgets the hyperlink.

Converting those unlinked mentions is one of the easiest wins in marketing. The process is deliberately boring:

1. Set up a Google Alert plus a Semrush or Ahrefs alert for your brand and founders’ names.
2. Each week, check who mentioned you without linking.
3. Send a short, warm note thanking them and asking if they could link your name so readers can find you.

Reply rates tend to be good because they already liked you enough to name you. Every reclaimed mention does double duty: a new link for rankings and a stronger brand signal for AI systems.

How to earn brand mentions worth having

Reclamation only harvests what already exists. The bigger game is giving the web new reasons to talk about you, and journalists are the fastest route.

Original data remains the highest-value currency. Journalists constantly need statistics, and if you supply the numbers you get the citation.

Reactive commentary is the fastest route of all. When news breaks in your niche, journalists need an expert line within hours, so watch request platforms such as Featured, Qwoted and ResponseSource in the UK, and reply quickly with something short and quotable.

Things worth citing keep earning over time: a useful free tool, a strong opinion backed by evidence, or an annual index your industry relies on. “Please link to our homepage” is not on that list.

Our guides to how a digital PR agency earns coverage and how media placements drive growth go deeper on the process.

Mentions plus links, not mentions instead of links

One caution before you act. Correlation is not causation, and strong brands earn mentions, links and citations all at once.

Links still power classic rankings, which feed the pool of pages AI systems draw from. Our analysis of whether backlinks still matter for AI search explains that relationship.

So the target is placements that deliver both: a relevant link in credible editorial context that also names your brand naturally. That combination works in traditional search and AI answers alike, and Google’s own guidance on AI features confirms the same fundamentals apply.

How to measure brand mentions

• How often your brand appears in AI answers to real buyer questions.
• Branded search volume over time.
• The share of your citations coming from earned versus owned sources.
• Conversions from referral and branded traffic.

Social profiles are another source of brand signals. We cover what they can and can’t do in our guide to social backlinks and SEO.

Frequently asked questions

Do brand mentions help SEO without a link?

They can. Search engines and AI systems recognise brands as entities, so credible mentions add to how your brand is understood even without a link.

How do I find unlinked brand mentions?

Use Google Alerts plus a mention-tracking tool in Semrush or Ahrefs, then review new mentions weekly and ask for a link where it fits.

Are brand mentions replacing backlinks?

Not replacing, but rising in importance. The best placements earn both, which is why we see them as part of off-page SEO beyond backlinks.

Start with a mention audit

If your brand is invisible in the places AI tools read, that’s a fixable problem. Search your category’s buyer questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, note who gets cited and who doesn’t, and build your placement plan around closing that gap.

Linkuild exists for exactly this work: getting your brand named and quoted in real publications, in front of readers and AI retrieval systems at the same time. Contact us to plan yours.

Clients keep asking whether links still count now that AI answers do the reading. The short answer is yes, but the job backlinks do in AI search has changed.

For twenty years the formula was simple: earn links, climb rankings, collect traffic. Then Google AI Overviews started answering questions directly, ChatGPT and Perplexity started citing sources, and a new claim spread: backlinks don’t matter for AI.

That claim is half right, and the wrong half can cost you. Here’s where links still work, where they’ve been overtaken, and how to plan for both classic rankings and AI citations.

What the research found

Ahrefs analysed 75,000 brands to see which off-site signals line up with appearing in AI Overviews. In its AI Overview brand visibility study, branded web mentions correlated with AI visibility far more strongly than backlinks did.

Read the fine print. Correlation is not causation: strong brands earn mentions, links and citations together, so mentions may signal brand strength rather than cause citations. Treat the numbers as a map, not a recipe.

A second Ahrefs finding matters for rankings. Its analysis found that only about 38% of AI Overview citations also ranked in the organic top 10.

A big reason is query fan-out. The system runs several related searches behind one question, so a page can be cited for a sub-question it ranks for even if it never ranks for the main keyword.

The indirect route: links feed rankings, rankings feed citations

None of this means links stopped working. They now work one step removed from where they used to.

Google’s guidance on AI features and your website says the same SEO fundamentals apply: a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in search to be shown as a supporting link.

AI answers combine what a model learned in training with live retrieval from a search index. Links influence the second part, shaping what gets indexed, ranked and surfaced.

So links feed rankings, rankings feed the candidate pool, and the pool feeds citations. That explains the weaker direct correlation without making links irrelevant.

Where AI citations actually come from

If links aren’t the main driver, what is? Large citation studies keep pointing at third-party sources, especially earned media.

Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse research found that earned media accounts for around 84% of AI citations across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

The message is consistent: AI systems lean on what other people say about you, from news coverage to communities, reviews and video. Your own perfectly optimised service page is rarely the source they reach for first.

What this means for your link strategy

The old thinking chased link counts and authority scores. The new thinking says relevant links from credible sites matter more, and volume has diminishing returns once you’re trusted.

Topical fit and a real audience count as much as any metric, and branded anchors with natural mentions beat exact-match stuffing.

The placements that help most do two jobs at once. They pass a relevant link and put your brand, product and expertise in front of readers and AI retrieval systems in a credible editorial context.

Comparison pieces, expert roundups and genuine contributions on relevant sites fit that description. Random placements on unrelated sites don’t, whatever their authority score. Our guide to guest posting in 2026 covers what still works.

Success metrics need the same update. Track citations in AI answers, branded search growth and conversions alongside links.

The risk side hasn’t gone away

AI search didn’t repeal Google’s spam policies. Paid and sponsored links should still be qualified with rel=”sponsored”, and guest post links placed mainly for ranking with rel=”nofollow”.

Google’s link spam systems are built to neutralise paid link networks, site-wide link selling and thin guest posts that exist only to carry a link.

The safe approach is to buy visibility and editorial placement, not rankings. Work only with sites that publish real content for real readers, and accept that some links will be qualified yet still valuable for exposure and mentions.

Google is also tightening up on manipulative links. Our breakdown of the September 2026 spam update explains what changed.

Frequently asked questions

Do backlinks help you appear in AI Overviews?

Indirectly. Links help pages get indexed and rank, which puts them in the pool AI Overviews draw from. They’re a foundation rather than the deciding factor.

What matters more than backlinks for AI search?

How widely and credibly the web talks about your brand. We cover this in brand mentions are becoming the new backlinks.

Should I stop building links?

No. Build fewer, more relevant, more editorial links that also earn a mention. Our link building fundamentals guide explains how.

The bottom line

Backlinks have moved from the main stage to the foundation. They still decide whether you’re trusted enough to be considered, but they no longer decide on their own whether an AI answer names you.

What separates cited brands from ignored ones is how widely and credibly the web talks about them. That makes media placements and off-page SEO beyond links more important than ever.

Linkuild is built around this shift: editorial placements on real publications your buyers read, chosen for relevance rather than vanity metrics. Contact us to review where your placements land today.

Ask most business owners what off page SEO means and they’ll say one word: backlinks. They’re not wrong, exactly, because links from other sites remain one of the strongest signals Google uses.

But treating off-page SEO as a synonym for link building misses most of what actually shapes your reputation in search.

What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO is everything that happens away from your website that influences how far search engines trust you.

On-page SEO asks whether this page is the best answer for the search. Technical SEO asks whether Google can find and process it properly.

Off-page SEO answers the harder question: why should Google trust this site over the established alternatives?

Backlinks: still the heavyweight

Links didn’t stop mattering. A link from a relevant, respected site is still a vote of confidence, and a strong link profile still separates sites that rank from sites that almost rank.

What changed is the emphasis. A handful of links from genuinely relevant publications will outperform dozens from unrelated directories.

Search engines weigh the relevance of the linking site, the authority it has earned and whether the link looks editorial. Links built mainly to manipulate rankings fall under Google’s link spam policies, so earn links worth having rather than collecting links that are easy to get.

New to the basics? Our practical guide to link building fundamentals covers how good links are earned.

Brand mentions, with or without links

Here’s the part many businesses overlook. Search engines can recognise your brand even when nobody links to you.

Through entity recognition, brand names in ordinary text are connected to what’s known about your business. Mentions in news articles, podcast transcripts and forum threads all feed that understanding.

This has two practical consequences. Getting talked about matters even without a link, and every unlinked mention on a decent site is a link waiting to happen through a polite request.

Sentiment counts too. Positive mentions across varied sources read as genuine authority, while a pattern of complaints reads as a warning. We cover this in depth in brand mentions are becoming the new backlinks.

Reviews and local signals

For any business serving customers in specific places, reviews are off-page SEO with direct commercial impact.

Keep your business name, address and phone number identical everywhere: your site, Google Business Profile, directories and review platforms. Inconsistencies create doubt, which is the opposite of what off-page SEO builds.

Encourage a steady flow of fresh reviews and respond to them, especially critical ones. In the UK, that means taking Google reviews and Trustpilot seriously rather than as an afterthought.

Digital PR and media coverage

Digital PR sits where public relations meets SEO, and it has become one of the most effective off-page strategies available. The method is simple to describe and hard to execute.

Create something genuinely newsworthy, usually original research, data or expert insight, and earn coverage from real publications. A strong story can be picked up by several outlets, each linking or referring back to the source.

These are editorial links in the truest sense, because journalists chose to reference your work. Our guide to how a digital PR agency builds rankings explains the process, and digital PR vs traditional PR covers how it differs from classic press work.

Social presence and community signals

Social media links don’t directly move rankings. What social and community presence does is confirm you are a real business with real engagement.

Active profiles on the platforms your customers use, genuine participation in industry discussions and content that earns shares all add evidence of legitimacy. Treat it as corroboration rather than a ranking lever.

A note on E-E-A-T

You’ll see Google’s framework of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness in almost every SEO article. The nuance most skip is that E-E-A-T is not a single ranking factor or score.

Google describes it in its guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content as a way to think about quality. You can’t optimise the acronym, only build what it describes: clear authorship, first-hand experience, careful sourcing, accuracy and a reputation that holds up when someone checks.

Off-page SEO is where most of that reputation is built, because trust is something others confer on you, not something you claim about yourself.

Off-page SEO checklist

• Earn relevant editorial links rather than buying bulk placements.
• Monitor brand mentions and convert good unlinked ones.
• Keep business details consistent and reviews flowing.
• Run at least one digital PR idea per quarter.
• Stay active where your customers talk.
• Audit your backlink profile for spam regularly.

For the fundamentals, read our guide to what backlinks are, and our honest take on social backlinks.

Frequently asked questions

What is off-page SEO in simple words?

It’s everything outside your website that builds search engines’ trust in it: backlinks, brand mentions, reviews, press coverage and community presence.

Is off-page SEO only link building?

No. Links are the biggest part, but mentions, reviews and reputation all contribute to how credible your brand appears.

How long does off-page SEO take to work?

Expect months rather than weeks. Reputation compounds, so consistent effort beats short bursts of activity.

Putting it together

Off-page SEO in 2026 is a portfolio, not a single tactic. Links, mentions, reviews, coverage and community presence all feed the same judgement: is this business credible enough to recommend?

Businesses that treat it as reputation building tend to compound results year after year. Businesses that treat it as link buying start over every time Google updates.

This is the layer most in-house teams struggle to staff, because it runs on relationships, editorial judgement and consistent outreach. Linkuild builds this external reputation for clients every day through earned media placements and genuine mentions. Get in touch to start with an audit of what the web already says about you.