# Link spam update

Category: [Google Updates & Algorithms](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/google-updates-algorithms/) › [Spam updates & policies](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/google-updates-algorithms/spam-updates-policies/)

A **link spam update** is an announced improvement to how Google detects and discounts unnatural links. It differs from a general spam update, which covers other violations of the spam policies.

## What happens in a link spam update?

Google's documentation says that when its systems remove the effect of spammy links, the ranking benefit those links produced is lost. Removing the links afterward may not bring an improvement, because the benefit is gone. Other spam updates differ here, since a site can recover over months.

The first link spam update started on July 26, 2021. The most recent update that Google's Search Status Dashboard labels as a link spam update started on December 14, 2022 and ran 29 days there. Google's announcement post said it would take about two weeks. Google used SpamBrain, its AI-based spam prevention system, to identify unnatural link patterns and the sites behind them, such as paid links or pages that exist only to pass on links.

Rankings can fall when links stop counting, even though the site itself is not penalized (assumption).

## Example

A site relied on many links from article directories and paid guest posts. After a link spam update these links pass no value, and rankings for the affected queries drop.

## FAQ

**How can I tell whether a link spam update is running?**
Google reports ranking updates on the Search Status Dashboard under Ranking.

## At a glance

- **Started:** July 26, 2021 (first link spam update)
- **Completed:** January 12, 2023 (latest listed, began December 14, 2022)
- **Type:** Spam update (link spam)
- **Affects:** Paid links and sites that only pass on links
- **Confirmed by:** yes
- **Docs:** [Google: Spam updates](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/spam-updates)

Last checked: October 8, 2026

## Google ranking systems 2010–2024

- **June 8, 2010:** Google announces the completion of Caffeine, its new web indexing system. Google says it delivers 50 percent fresher results than the previous index. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html))
- **February 24, 2011:** Google announces a ranking change against low-quality and copied content that noticeably affects 11.8% of queries. Google later refers to the system by its nickname “Panda”. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html))
- **November 3, 2011:** Google improves how it decides when to favour recent results. According to Google the change affects roughly 35 percent of searches and builds on Caffeine. ([Source](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html))
- **January 19, 2012:** Google launches a change that looks at page layout. Pages with little content and many ads above the fold may rank lower. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement))
- **April 24, 2012:** Google announces a change against webspam, later nicknamed “Penguin”. It affects about 3.1% of English queries and roughly 3% of German queries. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality))
- **August 2013:** Hummingbird, which Google describes as a major improvement to its overall ranking systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **2015:** Panda becomes part of the core ranking systems. Google now lists it among its retired systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **2015:** Google launches RankBrain, the first deep learning system used in Search. It relates the words in a query to real-world concepts. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/how-ai-powers-great-search-results/))
- **April 21, 2015:** Google starts rolling out the mobile-friendly update, boosting mobile-friendly pages in mobile search results. The industry unofficially calls it “Mobilegeddon”. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update))
- **September 23, 2016:** Penguin becomes part of the core algorithm and now works in real time. Before that, the list of affected sites was only refreshed periodically. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2016/09/penguin-is-now-part-of-our-core))
- **2018:** Google introduces neural matching. The system helps relate queries to pages through underlying concepts. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/how-ai-powers-great-search-results/))
- **2018:** Launch of SpamBrain, Google’s AI-based spam prevention system. Google says it identified nearly six times more spam sites in 2021 than in 2020. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/04/webspam-report-2021))
- **October 25, 2019:** Google applies BERT to ranking and featured snippets. At launch it affects about one in ten English searches in the US. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/search-language-understanding-bert/))
- **October 15, 2020:** Google presents passage ranking, which can assess individual passages of a page for a query. Google expects it to improve 7 percent of queries. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/search-on/))
- **April 8, 2021:** First product reviews update. It rewards in-depth product reviews and initially covers English-language reviews only. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/product-reviews-update))
- **May 18, 2021:** Google introduces MUM, a model trained across 75 languages. Google calls it 1,000 times more powerful than BERT. ([Source](https://blog.google/products/search/introducing-mum/))
- **July 26, 2021:** First link spam update. It aims to identify and nullify link spam across multiple languages and rolls out over two weeks. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/07/link-tagging-and-link-spam-update))
- **August 25 to September 9, 2022:** With the helpful content update, Google aims to show more original, helpful content written for people. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/sbKc4YSptrSxcUZFDKwU))
- **December 5, 2022 to January 12, 2023:** December 2022 helpful content update. Google says it improves the classifier and works globally in all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/XMdX5PmbMvKW4fv3CRvn))
- **April 12 to April 25, 2023:** The product reviews update becomes the reviews update. Google says it now covers reviews of products, services and other things. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN8iR))
- **September 14 to September 28, 2023:** September 2023 helpful content update. Google says it improves the classifier again. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/53diuQvcEsgzqXTPBb8p))
- **November 8 to December 7, 2023:** November 2023 reviews update. As the reviews system is now improved at a regular pace, Google no longer posts future updates on the Status Dashboard. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VqRTcmyQCwfpuYeaVNfn))
- **March 2024:** The helpful content system becomes part of the core ranking systems. Google now lists it among its retired systems. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide))
- **March 5, 2024:** Three new spam policies against expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. The March 2024 spam update launches the same day. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies))
- **May 5, 2024:** The site reputation abuse policy takes effect. Google had given site owners time to prepare since March. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies))
- **August 5, 2024:** In the US antitrust case against Google, the court describes Navboost as a signal that memorises which documents users click for a query. This is a court document, not a Google publication. ([Source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1033.0_1.pdf))
- **November 19, 2024:** Google tightens the site reputation abuse policy. First-party involvement does not change the assessment when third-party content exploits the host site’s ranking signals. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/11/site-reputation-abuse))

## Core and spam updates from November 2021 to today

- **November 3 to November 11, 2021:** November 2021 spam update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/AFdXceQVsh1GEfKFvHyD))
- **November 17 to November 30, 2021:** November 2021 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/FncPfR7zRSZ3diemah4o))
- **May 25 to June 9, 2022:** May 2022 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/GHwLLtDS64a7nDng8xhD))
- **September 12 to September 26, 2022:** September 2022 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/Y2Cg5k2xLJvfNqR58kEt))
- **October 19 to October 21, 2022:** October 2022 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/SAeYuxVSo39HHotQNXHr))
- **December 14, 2022 to January 12, 2023:** December 2022 link spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/CxXUEK28vCKqkNocPhKR))
- **March 15 to March 28, 2023:** March 2023 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/Cou8Tr74r7EXNthuEsaG))
- **August 22 to September 7, 2023:** August 2023 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/nBtYtBeex4GYBbdDS2LX))
- **October 4 to October 20, 2023:** October 2023 spam update, global, with improved coverage in languages including Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi and Chinese. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/NzcEhGMDhbQEdXCS35xL))
- **October 5 to October 19, 2023:** October 2023 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VKyoS53ULWzSp8BoDxqk))
- **November 2 to November 28, 2023:** November 2023 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/WtY1CQgfqrr2cjxKbyUk))
- **March 5 to March 20, 2024:** March 2024 spam update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/iXz2PJfodvyjaVUeqxZE))
- **March 5 to April 19, 2024:** March 2024 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/1jW2F89qC2NxJBWGiKxE))
- **June 20 to June 27, 2024:** June 2024 spam update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/QdUeCQx3LRVbzQ3E7FiD))
- **August 15 to September 3, 2024:** August 2024 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/gVx6b2o78zke7GrMidGy))
- **November 11 to December 5, 2024:** November 2024 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/G7rp11wqTaTGn6JjiPF3))
- **December 12 to December 18, 2024:** December 2024 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/V9nDKuo6nWKh2ThBALgA))
- **December 19 to December 26, 2024:** December 2024 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/UUq2WSouY7PhSm8zvtD1))
- **March 13 to March 27, 2025:** March 2025 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/zpmwuSwifjDjfrVdaZUx))
- **June 30 to July 17, 2025:** June 2025 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/riq1AuqETW46NfBCe5NT))
- **August 26 to September 22, 2025:** August 2025 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/a7Aainy6E9rZsmfq82xt))
- **December 11 to December 29, 2025:** December 2025 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/DsirqJ1gpPRgVQeccPRv))
- **March 24 to March 25, 2026:** March 2026 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VbnSXAH4SmEcxPtx4YSD))
- **March 27 to April 8, 2026:** March 2026 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/7eTbAa2jWdToLkraZj5y))
- **May 21 to June 2, 2026:** May 2026 core update. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE))
- **June 24 to June 26, 2026:** June 2026 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/YUX1peHev5a4fkxLDiUQ))
- **August 18 to August 21, 2026:** August 2026 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/LEubPCm2octf2uMqCFKE))
- **September 24 to October 8, 2026:** September 2026 spam update, global and for all languages. ([Source](https://status.search.google.com/incidents/XhUDXP7A67iHCD2kmbVu))

## Related terms

- [Spam update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/spam-update/index.md)
- [Link spam](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/link-spam/index.md)
- [SpamBrain](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/spambrain/index.md)
- [Penguin update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/penguin-update/index.md)
- [Buying links](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/buying-links/index.md)
- [Google algorithm update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/google-algorithm-update/index.md)

## Sources

- [Google Search spam updates and your site – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/spam-updates)
- [December 2022 link spam update – Google Search Central Blog](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/december-22-link-spam-update)
- [Google Search Status Dashboard, Ranking](https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history)

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Last updated: October 8, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/link-spam-update/