SEO: Google has completed its Anti-Spam update (Google Spam Update August 2025)
The August 2025 Spam Update is complete: learn its impact on your SEO and how to analyze your performance.
After 27 days of rollout, Google officially completed its August 2025 Spam Update on September 22, 2025. This anti-spam update, affecting all sites and languages, aims to improve search result quality by penalizing misleading and spammy content. SEO professionals now need to analyze their data and adjust strategies to stay competitive.
What is the August 2025 Spam Update?
Google’s updates target spammy practices such as automatically generated content, satellite pages, cloaking, and keyword stuffing. According to the Google Search Status Dashboard, this update was rolled out globally from August 26 to September 22, 2025. Its main goal is to clean SERPs from abusive and misleading content.
Have you been impacted?
To assess the impact, several KPIs should be analyzed:
- Top 10 average position, which appears largely unaffected by the removal of num=100 (Ahrefs notes that “rankings beyond the top 10 will show inconsistencies”).
- Click count, unaffected by the num=100 removal.
- Page indexing, via Pages or Sitemaps reports in Search Console, to identify any de-indexed pages.
- Average position using tools that account for the num=100 tracking change (e.g., Monitorank, which has incorporated this change since early 2024).
Google recommends comparing 7 days after the update with 7 days before to measure the differences accurately.
Practices targeted by Google
The update specifically penalizes:
- Cloaking and hidden content
- Satellite pages and low-value content
- Abusive use of expired domains
- Keyword stuffing and toxic links
- Pirated content or low-value affiliate content
Sites following best SEO practices, using modern CMS like Butterfly and editorial tools like Semantic, are less likely to be penalized.
How to react?
If you notice drops in performance, a thorough SEO audit can help identify problematic pages and correct spammy practices. Focus on improving content quality and technical structure to secure your SERP positions.
Further reading:
This update demonstrates that Google continues to strengthen its algorithms to filter low-quality content. SEO professionals must adopt a proactive approach by improving editorial quality, technical site structure, and using appropriate tools to monitor performance.
In Brief:
- The August 2025 Spam Update has been completed as of September 22, 2025.
- It targets spammy content, cloaking, satellite pages, and toxic links.
- Analyze post-update KPIs: average position, Top 10, clicks, and indexing.
- Conduct SEO audits to identify and correct risky practices.
- Stay vigilant: Google continues to enhance SERP quality.