Google has released a new algorithm update the search company is naming the Google June 2024 Spam Update yesterday, on June 20, 2024. This update does not have anything new specific changes that we are aware of, like some previous updates. Google just wrote, “Today we released the June 2024 spam update. It may take up to 1 week to complete, and we’ll post on the Google Search Status Dashboard when the rollout is done.”
Google did link to its generic spam updates page on its help documentation but that page was no updated with any new details. Google did say on LinkedIn, “It’s a normal spam update, it’s not the algorithmic part of reputation abuse. We’ll inform when that happens.” Also, this is not link related, because Google has separate link spam updates and this was labeled just a “spam update.” Google also confirmed that for me on X.
I will say the early reaction to this update is not positive. I mean, a lot of content creators and SEOs are fed up with Google search quality and these updates. Of course, these Google updates aim at improving overall search quality, while spam updates aim to remove spam that is manipulating those search results.
June 2024 Google Spam Update Quick Facts
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google June 2024 Spam Update
- Launched: June 20, 2024 at about 11:15 am ET
- Rollout: Will take about a week to fully rollout.
- Targets: Sites violating some of the Google search spam policies.
- Does Not Target: This update does not target link spam, it does not target the site reputation abuse policy and some other policies.
- Penalty: It penalizes some of spam techniques that are against Google’s spam policies.
- 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 you were hit by this, Google said you should review its spam policies to ensure they are complying with those.
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to the spam update. It can take many months to recover, Google said.
Tracking Tools On June 2024 Spam Update
The tools are mostly calm, so it does not seem to be picking up big changes from this update yet. I don’t expect it to, since this is a spam update and not a core update. That being said, some tools have been heated for many days now.
Previous Google Spam Updates
Here are the documented previous spam updates:
- June 2021 spam update on June 23, 2021 – one day rollout
- June 2021 spam update on June 28, 2021 – one day rollout
- July 2021 link spam update started on July 26, 2021 and completed 29 days later on August 24, 2021
- November 2021 spam update started on November 3, 2021 and completed 8 days later on November 11, 2021
- October 2022 spam update started on October 19, 2022 and completed 48 hours later on October 21, 2022
- December 2022 link spam update started on December 14, 2022 and completed 19 days later on January 12, 2023
- October 2023 spam update started on October 4, 2023 and completed 15 days later on October 20, 2023
- March 2024 spam update started on March 5, 2024 and completed 15 days later on March 20, 2024
Spam Update Details
Google’s very own spam update help documentation says:
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.
Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies.
In the case of a link spam update (an update that specifically deals with link spam), making changes might not generate an improvement. This is because when our systems remove the effects spammy links may have, any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost. Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.
Other Spam Update Information
I do wonder if this spam update caused those indexing issues last night?
Everyone is just a bit feisty right now but here is the confirmation about it not being related to the site reputation abuse and not a link spam update:
It’s not. As I’ve shared before, I have ever confidence that when it is, we’ll share about that. Also, apologies for my original response below, which I’ve deleted but will also screenshot for the context. I know the important work you do (especially because we used to work… pic.twitter.com/xMurvQadlq
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 21, 2024
Forum discussion at X, Black Hat World and WebmasterWorld.
