What changed in the Google spam update, and why it matters

Google’s recent spam updates, continuing the policy shifts announced from 2024 into 2025, target four behaviours with sharper enforcement: scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, expired domain abuse, and link spam. Each is both a technical problem and a behavioural signal to Google about integrity. Understanding each area is step one to protecting your SEO rankings. Scaled content abuse now captures pages produced or combined at scale, often with AI, without adequate value, curation, or originality. According to Google’s spam policies, the intent behind the content matters. If it is primarily to manipulate rankings, you are at risk. The pattern detection has improved. Identical or near-duplicate answers syndicated across multiple pages, thin aggregator write ups that add no unique insight, and auto generated Q and A hubs are being reweighted down or removed. Site reputation abuse describes high authority domains hosting third party content that rides on the host’s credibility without oversight. Think of unreviewed partner posts on news sites, or coupon pages that sit on reputable domains but operate like standalone affiliate farms. Google signalled a grace period in 2024 for enforcement. That period is over. If you publish on another site, expect stricter editorial requirements. If you host third parties, apply visible controls. Expired domain abuse closes the loophole of buying old domains exclusively to pass link equity or redirect unrelated content. The new enforcement looks at topical continuity and historic intent. If a defunct local charity domain is now a crypto how to site, you should assume serious risk. Link spam is not new, but detection is sharper. Networks, private blog rings, paid links without rel=sponsored, and manipulative guest posting face more consistent discounting. You may not see a manual action. You will likely see lost rankings as links are algorithmically devalued. Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush can help you detect suspicious link patterns. Treat them as diagnostic, not a shield. The why is simple. Google is accountable to users and regulators to keep results useful. By narrowing the gap between what people trust and what crawlers rank, Google hardens search quality. Entities such as Gartner and Stanford HAI have highlighted the explosion of generated content. The spam update is a structural response. It rewards provenance, context, and evidence over volume. This is not a war on AI, it is a war on unreviewed scale. AI generated content with expert review, original data, and clear bylines is not spam. Unsupervised mass production looks like spam, and now ranks like spam.

How rankings move now: signals, thresholds, and the new risk calculus

Think about rankings as a threshold model. The spam update raises the threshold for entry and narrows tolerance for grey zone tactics. Three forces shape where you sit relative to that threshold. First, authority must be earned and shown. Brands with consistent entity signals across the web perform better. If your brand is referenced in credible places, if staff have public expertise, and if your About page reads like a real organisation with accountability, you clear the new bar faster. According to McKinsey and Think with Google, brand familiarity influences both click behaviour and conversion. Google can observe that through search interactions, brand queries, and linkless references. This means brand building is not separate from SEO. It is a ranking input. Second, intent alignment matters more than format. A five thousand word article that dodges the user’s core question is now a liability, not a moat. If you target “how to lodge a tax return” and bury the answer beneath a wall of generic finance tips, you look manipulative. Google’s systems increasingly reward immediate clarity. Summaries up top, steps with sources, and a final verdict with caveats are not just nice to have. They map to how people judge helpfulness, and how AI overviews extract answers. Third, consistency across your site and your footprint protects you. A pristine blog cannot offset a chaotic affiliate section or a rogue subdomain. The update is good at pattern detection. If 30 percent of your pages show scaled templates, even if some are useful, the pattern flags risk. If your top new links come from the same three content farms, even if the anchors vary, value is discounted. Volatility confirms this model. Industry sensors like Semrush Sensor and MozCast showed turbulence around update windows in late 2024 and early 2025. Sites with lean, intent aligned content and clean link profiles experienced smaller dips and faster rebounds. Sites dependent on volume or reputation arbitrage saw prolonged declines. You can raise your own threshold score with simple but decisive moves. Add explicit bylines with credentials, and link to author profiles. Attach sources and disclose methods on any data driven post. Include last updated dates and change logs. Use rel=sponsored and rel=ugc tags where appropriate. Tighten internal linking to remove orphaned or expired pages. The new calculus is less about tricks, more about visible governance.

90 day playbook: avoiding spam penalties and growing SEO rankings

Use this three phase plan to protect your positions and create momentum. It is designed for resource constrained teams and enterprise publishers alike. Phase 1, week 1 to 2: assess and triage. Start with Google Search Console. Check manual actions, indexing coverage, and the performance report split by page groups. Tag pages that lost impressions around the update window. Crawl your site with a trusted tool, then export pages by template and traffic. You are looking for scaled content patterns, doorway structures, thin affiliate pages, and expired sections that no longer serve a purpose. Pull a link audit from Ahrefs or Moz to highlight sudden spikes, repeating anchors, or low quality networks. Add human review, which is where many teams fail. Pick a representative sample of underperforming pages and read them as a user would. Do they answer the query quickly? Do they show who wrote it and why they are credible? Do they cite sources? Do they have a reason to exist beyond search? Phase 2, week 3 to 6: fix, prune, and prove. Consolidate near duplicates into a single authoritative page. Add a summary box at the top that answers the query in two or three sentences. Add authorship and a short bio. If the page draws on data, add a Sources section and link to the data. If a page exists only to meet an arbitrary keyword gap and offers nothing unique, retire it and redirect to a relevant canonical. Use rel=sponsored and rel=ugc for any paid or untrusted links. Remove footer link clutter and sitewide affiliate anchors. Create an editorial governance page so your standards are public. Outline your review process, fact checking steps, and update cadence. Google’s systems cannot read your mind, but they can read your signals. Show them. Phase 3, week 7 to 12: rebuild authority and depth. Launch a compact set of definitive guides mapped to top tasks in your category. Include real examples, screenshots, and Australian context where relevant. Add an FAQ that mirrors what AI systems extract. Contribute bylined articles to credible industry publications with strict editorial standards. Treat link earning as advocacy, not procurement. In short, get people to cite you because you helped them. It helps to think beyond classic SEO. AI overviews and answer boxes favour clarity, evidence, and scannable structure. Write first for the user, then make it easy for machines to parse. Use concise headings, simple HTML, and explanatory anchors like This means and According to where they add clarity. If you need support building the system, consider structured help. Bushnote’s AI Search Optimisation service focuses on evidence led content and retrieval, and integrates with editorial controls to reduce spam risk. See www.bushnote.com/ai-search-optimisation. If you are rebuilding your content spine and narrative, Bushnote’s Brand and Narrative work can help align story, authority, and proof at www.bushnote.com/brand-and-narrative. For broader go to market work, Strategy and Campaigns integrates content, channels, and measurement at www.bushnote.com/strategy-and-campaigns.

Optimising for AI search: beyond blue links

The spam update intersects with the rise of AI overviews. If your pages are helpful but not structured, you limit your visibility in the new answer layer. You can fix this without turning your site into a schema museum. Start by making intent obvious. Place a two to three sentence answer near the top. Then provide steps, evidence, and exceptions. Use simple HTML headings. Avoid excessive tables that slow load or confuse extraction. Add a short Pros and Cons block only if the query merits a decision. The cognitive cost for users must be low. Attach proof. Cite standards, regulators, and research where appropriate. Gartner, Stanford HAI, and Think with Google publish useful studies on user behaviour and AI impacts. When you make a claim about the cost of a tactic or the time to impact, add a source or your own data. AI systems prefer content that carries references because it reduces hallucination risk. Show authorship and update discipline. AI systems often extract bylines and dates to judge currency. If your expertise is assessable, the overview layer is more likely to use you. Include a light FAQ at the end of key pages. This content is designed for both humans and machines, so make it precise. Finally, consider a dedicated signals page that centralises your policies, editorial standards, and contact details. It is a trust anchor for both users and crawlers. For teams moving into performance media, integrate search and content with digital channels. The goal is to diversify demand, not only recover rankings. Bushnote’s Digital Marketing practice can help sequence paid and organic with evidence at www.bushnote.com/digital-marketing.

Measurement that matters: weekly signals and recovery windows

Recovery is not magic. It is measurement plus discipline. Set a weekly, not daily, rhythm so you can see patterns without overreacting to noise. Start with search demand. Monitor branded and non branded query groups in Google Search Console. If branded recovery is flat, invest in brand building and PR that earns mentions in credible places. If non branded head terms are down but long tail is steady, your content quality is likely fine, and your templates or internal linking need work. Track crawl and index hygiene. Use server logs to identify crawl waste, for example bots spending time on parameters, redirects, or low value archives. Reduce that by tightening internal linking and using robots rules with restraint. Overblocking is a common self inflicted wound. Check indexation rate weekly. When you improve a page, request reindexing. Do not spam the tool. Quality changes will surface. Audit links monthly. Focus on net new referring domains. A small number of high quality references beats hundreds of low quality mentions. If you find paid placements that are not disclosed, fix them with rel=sponsored. Disavow is a last resort. Most toxic domains are already ignored by Google’s systems. Set outcome metrics that align with the update. Measure helpfulness directly. Add a one click survey on key pages. Track scroll depth and time to first meaningful interaction. When you see improvements in these behavioural metrics, rankings usually follow. According to Gartner, user experience signals correlate with conversion and long term loyalty. Google’s direction of travel mirrors that. Understand the recovery window. Some changes will lift quickly when re crawled and re evaluated. Others, like rebuilding trust after aggressive link buying or parasite content, take weeks to months. Communicate this clearly to executives. Recovery is a function of evidence, not optimism. If your organisation needs a one page plan that executives can sign, distil your remediation in three blocks: what we will remove, what we will fix, and what we will prove. Budget time for each. Assign owners. Publish the plan internally so there is shared accountability. The spam update punishes shortcuts. Your response should reward discipline.