Google’s September spam update may take two weeks

It is the fourth update of this type this year and the one with the longest rollout window in 2026. Part of the industry is linking it to SAFE, Google’s new system for detecting mass-produced AI content, although there is no evidence for that.

Google began rolling out the September spam update on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 9:15 a.m. Pacific Time (6:15 p.m. in Poland). It covers all countries and languages. According to the Search Status Dashboard, the search engine’s official status page, the rollout may take up to two weeks, so roughly until October 8. Google did not say which spam practices the update targets.

Earlier spam updates this year, in March, June and August, had a window of “several days.” They lasted from 19 hours 30 minutes to 2 days and 16 hours. A two-week window does not mean the rollout will take all that time. This is reported by Search Engine Journal and PPC Land.

At the same time, Search Engine Journal described a three-page Google research paper on the SAFE system (Scaled Abuse Forensics Examiner). SAFE uses four AI agents, programs that perform separated tasks. The agents analyze content, unnatural publishing patterns and links between channels. The system is meant to catch materials that violate the intent of the rules, even if they do not fit known rules. According to the paper, it is already in use and shortens investigation time compared with processes in which decisions are made by humans. However, the paper mainly concerns video channel networks and does not mention the search engine. Linking SAFE to the September update is speculation by some SEO industry commentators, not a confirmed fact.

Google recommends that websites that notice changes in rankings or traffic after the update review their content for compliance with spam policies. Search Engine Journal also advises comparing data from Search Console (Google’s free tool for monitoring a site’s visibility) with the rollout dates. According to Google, fixes may produce results after several months.

From September 24, Google is also rolling out separate data in Search Console on traffic from image searches. The new “Multimodal” filter in the performance report includes Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, uploading photos to the search engine, and the “Search this image” option in Chrome. It shows the pages users land on, but without query data.

For companies, including those publishing content created with the help of AI, a long rollout window means that data from the first days of the rollout may not show the full effect of the update.