Google has released the August 2025 spam update on August 26, 2025 at around 12:00 pm ET. This update applies globally and to all languages and will take a few weeks to complete.
Google wrote on X and LinkedIn:
Today we released the August 2025 spam update.It may take a few weeks to complete, and we'll post on the Google Search Status Dashboard when the rollout is done.
The previous spam update was the December 2024 spam update that shocked everyone, since it started right before the holiday season. That update finished in seven days, whereas the August update is expected to take three-times as long.
August 2025 Google Spam Update Quick Facts
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google August 2025 Spam Update
- Launched: August 26, 2025 at about 12:00 pm ET
- Rollout: Will take about a three weeks 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.
What Google Said
Google didn't say much but did write:
Released the August 2025 spam update, which applies globally and to all languages. The rollout may take a few weeks to complete.
Google also posted this on X:
Today we released the August 2025 spam update.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 26, 2025
It may take a few weeks to complete, and we'll post on the Google Search Status Dashboard when the rollout is done:https://t.co/VyY24LVujq
There is nothing specifically new about this update, outside of Google saying they are running it again. There are no changes to its documentation around this update, but I do suspect Google modified its spam algorithm a bit.
The spam update page was last updated August 22, 2025 but there were no changes from last December's version.
This document reads:
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.
Video On Google August 2025 Spam Update
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
- June 2024 spam update started on June 20, 2024 and completed 7 days later on June 27, 2024
- December 2024 spam update started on December 19, 2024 and completed 7 days later on December 26, 2024.
Tracking Tools On August 2025 Spam Update
Here are what the tools are showing, keep in mind, sometimes it takes more than 24-hours for the tools to pick up on these updates:
Wiredboard's Aggregator of Tools - this report shows the aggregate of the tools above and plots them on one chart:
SEO Chatter On August 2025 Spam Update
Here is some chatter from within the community, linked to in the forum discussions below:
And so Google's amusing update game continues, with the spam update rolling out.
Google has just released the August 2025 spam update: “Today we released the August 2025 spam update.,” Given that the previous June 2025 core update already rendered many parasite SEO tactics ineffective, do you think parasite SEO can still survive this latest update?
Parasite SEO won’t completely die, but it’s becoming increasingly harder. Google is clearly targeting authority abuse with the June core + August spam updates. Weak pages and mass-scale parasite tactics will likely get deindexed fast. However, if someone builds on truly relevant authority sites with strong content and natural link profiles, it may still be effective just on a smaller scale and with more risk than before.
It's definitely getting harder with every new update, but the movie sites never cease to amaze me. You will know without much effort how the parasites are working if you only focus on such niches.
Whatever they are doing with this update it will not reuslt in better search results.
I'm already expecting the worst to happen as usual.
By the way, Google's August Spam Update will have a domino effect across AI Search tools that leverage Google's results. Drop out of Google? You might very well drop out of other tools leveraging Google's results. And those sites will obviously drop in AIOs, AI Mode, etc. since… https://t.co/1Lm8CC02ZM
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 26, 2025
hmmm a spam update!
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) August 26, 2025
August 2025 spam update 😏 https://t.co/B1jZdLxtBn
Wonder if this will hit the influx of GEO spam https://t.co/bmryb3ZbrB
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 26, 2025
Hope you’ve had a relaxing summer so far. Google as well: they’ve just released the August 2025 Spam Update 👀 check: https://t.co/LVNQGzRkpe pic.twitter.com/kBPU4pVyNO
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 26, 2025
Are you sure? I can still see AI overviews. pic.twitter.com/GOn6Of7xPa
— Andrew McGarry (@beyondcontent) August 26, 2025
I'd like to report a spammer called "AI Overviews"
— Nate Hake (@natejhake) August 26, 2025
It's coming up #1 for a ton of queries & violates all these Google policies:
-No first-hand experience
-Uses extensive automation
-No expertise
-Primarily summarizes what others have written pic.twitter.com/riHivldm2r
Seeing some huge fluctuations in certain keywords, but they last only for a few minutes.
— Deepak Yadav (@deepaksgt) August 27, 2025
It's Normal Today 🙂
— Rohit Baidya (@techly360) August 27, 2025
Crazy impression, some of my keywords ranking on top-10 before product updates and after HCU impression went to 0, but after new spam update impression spiked (5000%). Some of my keywords rank in 20-30.
— The Gadget Diary (@DiaryGadget) August 27, 2025
Forum discussion at X, LinkedIn, WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.
