Google confirmed that an algorithm change aimed at combating spam is now being rolled out to search results globally and in all languages. According to Google, the October 2022 spam upgrade is expected to take several days.
The company is calling this update the “October 2022 spam update.” It will take effect in about a week and be noticeable in the search results.
Google releases spam updates regularly to preserve the quality of its search results. Spam updates are designed to improve the quality of search results and to penalize the website’s adoption of spam link methods to manipulate search engine results.
Previous updates. Before this, the most recent confirmed Google spam update was the November 2021 spam update. Google also released a two-part Spam Update – on June 23 and June 28 in 2021, as well as the July 2021 link spam update.
Google Search Console Team Tweeted
Today we released the October 2022 spam update. Find out more about spam updates at https://t.co/XthD5GF06M . We’ll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfvo3J
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) October 19, 2022
Google Wrote an update on their website.
While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.
While thin information with little value may be deemed spammy, it does not fit Google’s definition of spam. Google’s helpful content algorithm is more likely to find thin content.
The impact of Spam Algorithm Update cannot be accessed immediately as it will take time to roll out completely on all Google data centers.
In less than about 42 hours, Google has fully rolled out the last spam update – the Google October 2022 spam update. The update began on October 19, 2022, at about 11 am ET and was completed on October 21, 2022, at about 5 am ET. That was quick, the previous spam update in November 2021 took 8 days to roll out, but some previous spam updates were rolled out within 24 hours of launching.
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google October 2022 Spam Update
- Launched: October 19, 2022, at around 11 am ET
- Penalty: It penalizes spam techniques that are against Google’s spam policies.
- Rollout: Completed on October 21, 2022, at around 5 am ET
- Targets: It improves Google’s spam detection techniques; Google said, “sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.”
- Global: This is a global update impacting all regions and languages.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
- Recover: If this hit you, Google said you should review its spam policies to ensure they comply with them.
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to the spam update. It can take many months to recover, Google said.