The Google August 2025 spam update is the first spam update of this year. Google didn’t announce anything special with this update, which means that it’s just one of the usual spam updates that Google does from time to time. The year 2024 had a total of three spam updates. So, will there be any other spam updates until the end of the year? We will see! This spam update started rolling on 26 August, and was completed by 22 September. This means that it took a total of 27 days to complete, making it 11 days longer than the June core update.
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The Impact of the Google August 2025 Spam Update
The most important thing to know is how this spam update influenced the users. Search Engine Land reports that by the 9th of September several websites noticed indexing issues. Results of the update were visible in the first 24 hours, but the beginning of September brought the real results to light. We know that Google targets and penalizes websites that use manipulative techniques with these spam updates. Moreover, Google announced that this spam update applies to all countries, regions and languages.
The Search Engine Roundtable shows a bunch of testimonies from people who suffered because of the spam update. People quickly started identifying fluctuation issues, and every analysis tool showed movement in the wrong direction. Some people even say that this spam update affected them more than the Google search update in June, or the last spam update that happened in December of 2024. While other people say that they noticed no change compared to previous updates. But, to better understand its impact and how to cope with it, we need to understand the purpose of a spam update.
What Is a Google Spam Update?
A spam update is when Google refines its systems that detect search spam and then penalizes it. SpamBrain is one of the systems that does exactly that. It detects the websites that use tactics to cheat the search rankings. So, a spam update wants to remove all of the spam content it can find, and punish the website by lowering its search results ranking. These spam updates are not known for introducing new spam policies, but rather enforcing and refining the already existing ones. Let’s take a look at some of the practices that are considered deceptive with the new spam update:
- Having a number of low-quality, auto-generated pages will lead to the new spam update being harmful for your rankings.
- Buying or selling links, which can be detected because of an unnatural linking scheme.
- Hosting third-party content that is unrelated to your business.
- Hidden harmful code in a website is penalized by the September spam update.
- Cloaking, which refers to the practice of showing the users and Google different things.
- Keyword stuffing is the overusing of keywords, and it’s still considered a manipulative technique with the latest spam update.
To put it simply, this spam update wanted to continue the work of reducing the effects of SEO shortcuts, which put the wrong website high in results. If your website or pages have been demoted or devalued, know that you can get back up.
How to Adapt Your Strategy?
If you have a website, you need to know how to adapt your SEO strategy based on the new Google spam update. This spam update was meant to detect search spam, and if the rankings of your website took a wrong turn, it usually means that there is something wrong. The first thing you want to do now that the spam update is complete is to run a full content audit. Identify the weak and duplicate pages, and especially the ones that are created via templates. You want to analyze and improve them. If necessary, simply remove the pages.
Pay attention to any broken or irrelevant links in your content. Replace or eliminate them before the next spam update finds them! Link-building should be done carefully, as doing it aggressively could trigger the “link spam” filters. As mentioned previously, keyword stuffing is considered a spam tactic. Revise your content and try to keep the keyword only where it feels natural. Ensure that your website is friendly for mobile users and no spam updates will harm you from now on.
A trick that we recommended after the last Google search update was to shift your focus towards E-E-A-T. The new spam update emphasizes its importance again. By providing author bios and talking about the expertise of the people on your team, you are showing that your business has experienced people behind it. This builds trust with both the users and the search engine. Moreover, probably all spam updates from now on will pay attention to E-E-A-T.
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Why Work with Us?
If you were affected by the latest update, you might want some professional help. GAMIT SEO is a team of SEO experts able to put your website back on its feet before any further damage is made. You might have content on the website that is considered fraudulent and you don’t even know it. But we know! We can identify how this spam update affected your website and help you fix it. If you are interested in the SEO services that we offer, contact us by phone or email!
About Author
Larisa Stefan
Larisa is our project manager and SEO engineer. Her personal competencies and professional knowledge fit well at Gamit. She works closely with clients and team members to establish the best SEO strategy for each of our projects and then supervises their completion and reporting.
