Thanks rb, we'll see what happens, or not!

Here is part of what google says about spam updates in general:

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.

For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.
[developers.google.com...]

I should be ranking #1 in my niche, if this is really a spam update :)... excepting if this SpamBrain thinks it's me the spammer, and the thousands of sites reproducing my content the legitimate original(s).

Mod's note. Identifiable names of local newspapers and educational sites mentioned by poster have been removed and replaced by generalized descriptions.... Public outing of specific sites, whether accurate or not, is against Google SEO News forum policies and WebmasterWorld Terms of Service.

<Named newspaper and educational sites> ...etc., given massive boost in impressions and ranking for paid posts.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:42 am (utc) on Oct 20, 2022]
[edit reason] Removed specifics, per forum Charter and ToS [/edit]

Lost more than 50% since yesterday. Hope this is temporary.

Thanks, Barry (aka rustybrick) for the heads up.....

In the Google twitter thread you link to, Google's JohnMu (aka John Mueller) was very emphatic in his responses to one poster's complaints....

It's a spam update. If you've been making spam, maybe don't make spam....

When that poster asked "what is considered spam in this case", John cited Google's very clear list, with explanations. Recommended reading.....

We have the spam policies that list a lot of this:

"Spam policies for Google web search"
[developers.google.com...]

developers.google.com Spam Policies for Google Web Search Google Search Central     Documentation     Google Developers The spam policies detail the behaviors and tactics that can lead to a page or an entire site being ranked lower or completely omitted from Google Search.

Following spam policies is no guarantee that your site won't be destroyed with spam updates. Some parts (regarding external links) of these policies are not even physically possible to comply with - they are outside of your reach.

I have a 17 year old super legit website that never violated any policies and it got hit with this "spam update" because of either one of these (or both):

1) Tens of thousands of spammy backlinks outside of my control (not just typical spammy directory or blogspot backlinks but also more malicious links from hacked websites, too many to keep track of)

2) Content that potentially doesn't fit some kind of naive template of what non-spammy content should look like (I built my website from user's perspective, not just to please some AI).

From what I could gather so far, everyone in my niche got hit by this update. Some websites are losing a huge amount of keywords everyday, while for some, it's less intense. But yes, everyone that I keep track of are hit by the spam update. And obviously, none are actively spamming anything. It's pure speculation from my point, but I think that the websites are being stripped by some of the keywords that they were ranking for so close to the holiday season for one reason. The reason is to buy those positions back from Google. Again, pure speculation, but it's just strange to see all websites in a niche to be hit like that.

I would think Google needs to cleanup their own house and remove all the YouTube spam from their SERPS. At least in our industry, the barrier between the consumer and quality results is Google spamming their own properties.

It is now done rolling out.

It is now done rolling out.

Just checked the rankings for the most important keywords in the four main niches that I follow, and didn't see any major rankings changes on any of the first page results. So in these niches this update was basically a non-event. Probably because there has never been much spam in these niches, and none at all in the first page results for the past few years.

@aristotle The tech niche is getting absolutely wrecked right now and that includes the big guys as well. I am actually a bit impressed by the lack of reaction from the mega domains, but I suppose they don't rely on the organic traffic as much as we do, so this is just a minor dent in their profit.

This was about backlink building and redirecting expired domain names to different sites! A Penguin of sorts!

Markedd -- Well the "tech niche" is really huge if you mean all of science and technology, both informational and commercial. It's hard for me to imagine that all of it would suddenly be taken over by spam. Or maybe I mis-interpreted your post and this isn't what you really mean.

Huge drop today... here we go again!

This was about backlink building and redirecting expired domain names to different sites! A Penguin of sorts!

If its true, it would once and for all verify that negative SEO works and is very powerful.

I just don't understand how a company that has been doing search for 24 years thinks that it's a good idea to value links both ways (with positive and negative impact) and are convinced that their AI can tell between links that were built by website operator versus links that were built by spammers and competitors.

I just don't understand how a company that has been doing search for 24 years thinks that it's a good idea to value links both ways (with positive and negative impact) and are convinced that their AI can tell between links that were built by website operator versus links that were built by spammers and competitors.

How would you approach it?

How would you do it differently?

Either positive/zero impact only, which would itself present some problems (sites with large link building budget would throw billions of backlinks at the wall and benefit from what temporarily "sticks"), or if they want to do it like this where each link gives positive or negative impact, I would:

1) Make it public that this is happening, so that hard working webmasters who follow all guidelines would not see their sites tank out of nowhere with no explanation from Google
2) Provide a well documented and easy to use tool in webmaster console where webmasters would disavow spammy links (enhanced version of disavow tool).
3) Acknowledge that 99% of bad links are not built by the site owners themselves. Make it clear that these link "disavowals" with this tool would not be viewed as any form of "admission of wrongdoing" and would have nothing to do with willful link building or any kind of SEO manipulation

Long time lurker, but I signed up, I got hit badly, 98% gone, terrible. I never been negatively impacted by any Google Update, most in fact, I gain, this one has utterly just ruined my website. I work on it full time, so yeah a real kick in the guts. Three years building, no blackhat seo stuff, genuine content i bust my butt doing, 50k users a day, down to nothing...

What makes me so angry are the automatic scrapers I have been fighting and trying to report to Google since its a Indian lead mob so no point doing anything legal, those websites are still in current positions scraping everyone's articles with hotlink photos, come on google you can destroy these, a website posting more than 10 articles a day with 100% hotlinks come on.... give penalty! oo right those belong at the top since they post 1000 adsense ads for you...

Lastly, a few manual copycats, split between indonesia and india, who manually copy and repaste parts of in full my text without the photos since i watermark them are all in first spot knocking me out, their sites are terrible, i mean when they copy they stuff half of it up... the ai scrapers do a better job, i just cannot get over how they have all increased in my niche, its just a that extra kick in the guts when you lost it all.

Rant over... Hope most do not see such a harsh result as I have..

Welcome to WebmasterWorld anubitez

As a matter of interest are you a current article-led site, not evergreen or product featured?

Hi RedBar,

Article-led, informational teaching. Customize, every step taken and show in photos, like the amount of work I put in, just yeah these others just copy copy copy copy and then some, then I see John M's tweet about not posting spam... mmmmkay that ticked me off a bit lol.

anubitez, do you have excessive amount of spammy backlinks, according to ahrefs, semrush or some other tracking tool?

Website is down 95% in traffic. Website is in the tech guides niche. Every post had screenshots for every step taken by us and was written by native English speakers.

We never built any backlinks ourselves, everything is organic. Literally no explanation for why we got hit this bad.

I'm pretty disgusted and overwhelmed.

hi luckyfellow,

I am sorry to hear, only thing I can say is I am in the same boat, many are, iso you are not alone.

hi christianz,

I did check, nothing on Google Console Search that looks suss, I do have some, but no more than the average site, a few close friends had a look they got more spam links than I do

I did sign up on semrush trial, I may pay for a month if need be if its something silly like this I need to nix, but given how many people seem to have been hit, I doubt its such a easy fix. I never had a issue before, like I said most updates I increased my traffic, strong DA since my posts are helpful to real people.

I know another friend who has a blog that is custom discussion on building he does, like it really cannot be copied too much without being 100% looking spam since its about unique machinery he designs for his vineyard, he has a large following, one to two posts a month for 10 years, his traffic reduced 90% as well, that is even more insane.

It seems information websites been hit so far, but like I said the spam ones, or blatant manual copycats who copy my stuff and screw 50% of it up have increased lol.

I will wait till Mid next week, hopefully things shift again if not then the copycats maybe upset as I am doing no content for now, leaving my loyal userbase upset, but as I shown in our private forums to my userbase, they do not blame me given I moneytize my website with header bidding since like I said I put hours upon hours into it, sometimes a day on a post citing links, taking screenshots, making graphics to explain and sometimes videos to have it reduced to nothing, I spend alot of servers and services for my users and site, so yeah no users no point for now.

Only other thing I can think of, in a effort to beat the spammers that rip my site, I recently in past 4 weeks used that rank math instant index by google, the one that sends a index ping using google cloud api, maybe that has sometime to do with it? Unsure...

I'll post again in a week or so, see where we go.

- If backlinks mattered most WW would be a top 5k website
- If return visits mattered most WW would be a top 5k website
- If helpful content mattered most WW would be a top 5k website
- If expertise mattered most WW would be a top 5k website
- If topic coverage mattered most WW would be a top 5k website

It seems that what matters most is a complete absense of content Google deems low quality, which happens with UGC forums.

My site is also a "tech informational" niche. Traffic lost almost 70%. But after seeing the messages here, it seems most are in the same boat.

Let us hope it recovers soon.

techwriter500 not sure if it can recover so quick, apparently spam updates take "months" to recover from.

Got back my audit from semrush, I am in the green for backlinks being non-toxic. So it is not an issue with that, I did not think so, given so many others in similar niches were affected.

if they struck all the spam and copycat sites, I wouldn't be too annoyed if innocents got caught up too, but the fact those sites terrible sites have increased so blatantly just scares me that Google has no idea, and given the responses from John M, seems this will be the new normal of a roller coaster.

I was wondering, are those who are negatively impacted by this update the same ones who are looking to archive a given number of words for their content, no matter how?