Understanding Google’s Recent Spam Update

SEO

Google search is never stagnant, and a new spam rollout began rolling out on August 26th and was completed on September 22nd. At Postali we track these updates and track the effects to make sure your firm’s website can come out on top. Below is a brief summary of the update:

• • What: Google August 2025 Spam Update
  • Where: Global rollout. All languages and all regions.
  • When: August 26, 2025 – September 22, 2025 (~27 days)

• Focus: This update was a normal spam update focused on tightening enforcement of existing spam policies. 

What Are Google Spam Updates? 

Google rolls out these spam updates a couple of times a year. These updates focus on enhancing the systems used to detect spam. They are only supposed to target sites that violate Google’s general spam policies (such as hidden text, cloaking, scraped content, keyword stuffing, and comment spam). Changes made tend to be large-scale to help bolster their defenses against manipulative SEO practices. 

 

While these updates are only supposed to target sites that are using spammy, “black-hat” SEO practices, the impact tends to stretch further. These updates often end up affecting sites that were using outdated or aggressive SEO tactics or sites with low-quality content as well. These updates are continuously raising the bar for what Google considers to be a “quality” website. Those sites that are truly seen as serving legitimate, user-focused content are often rewarded with these updates. 

The Impact of the 2025 Spam Update

Google didn’t announce anything unique with this latest update and kept it quite broad and general. The community has noticed a couple of specific impacts on their sites, notably on organic visibility, local performance, and indexing. 

Drops in Organic Visibility 

Many sites across Google saw steep drops in organic visibility. If Google detected spammy practices on your site, you likely experienced notable rankings drops, potentially even removal from search results altogether, which then impacts traffic to your site and visibility. 

Recovery from Past Updates

While many sites saw negative impacts, there were also sites that were previously penalized in updates that saw noticeable recoveries in their performance. This indicates that, within this refinement of Google’s algorithms, sites that were improperly hit were reinstated. 

Local Ranking Hits

Beyond organic rankings, the update can also cross over into local performance, causing drops in Local Pack visibility. This is particularly impactful for businesses that rely on local search traffic. 

Impact on Indexing 

Another effect that was noted by some sites during the early days of this rollout was indexing delays. This makes it difficult for new or updated content to show up in SERPs. This can end up hurting the timely visibility of quality content. 

Impact on Reporting 

This update also happened to coincide with a change where Google reduced the maximum number of organic search results shown to less than around 10 queries. This likely impacted both Google Search Console and third-party reporting tools, heightening the volatility seen and making it more difficult to accurately track ranking changes during the rollout of the spam update. 

 

Implications for Law Firm Websites 

When it comes to law firms, Google designates legal content as YMYL (Your Money Your Life). Because the content on these sites can directly impact an individual’s life, finances, and safety, Google tends to hold them to an even higher standard. 

This standard is often measured by Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT). If your site is negatively impacted by the Spam Update, it likely means that your content is struggling to meet this standard. There are a variety of practices that are often employed on law firm sites that can end up hurting performance during these updates. 

• Keyword Stuffing: overusing the same keywords (e.g., repeating “best Chicago DUI lawyer” over and over within page text) often indicates to crawlers that you care more about prioritizing search engines over users. This hurts the page and site’s trustworthiness as it comes across as being more focused on ranking than client guidance. 
• Link Spam: Buying or selling links in order to manipulate rankings is a direct violation of Google’s guidelines. This can signal low trustworthiness and a lack of genuine authority. This can also apply to the spammy usage of internal links on your site as well. 
• Thin Content: Creating a large quantity of pages with minimal content just to target specific keywords offers minimal value or insights to users. This also fails to showcase any depth of knowledge on the subject. 
• Automated Content: Using unedited content generated by AI often ends up lacking the needed review and touch of a human to ensure it’s factual, genuine, and useful to a real person. This content often reads as generic and lacking in firsthand knowledge. 

Recovering From A Negative Spam Update Hit

Has your law firm seen a dip in performance that aligns with the spam update? It is important to take steps as soon as possible to get you back on the right track. Luckily, there are a variety of things you can do to work towards accomplishing that. 

Determining If You Got Hit

Are you wondering if you got hit by this spam update? There are a couple of things you can look out for to diagnose the update’s impact on your site. The first thing is that you want to be looking for changes and performance within the date range of the rollout: 8/26/2025 to 9/22/2025. Within that date range, keep your eyes peeled for the following, both for the site overall and specific pages: 

• Inconsistent traffic patterns 
• Drops in clicks and impressions 
• Sudden drops in average position (both locally and organically) 
• Manual actions filed against you 
• Flagged indexing issues 

What Should Your Next Steps Be? 

After determining that your site has been impacted by an update, there are a variety of things that you can do to work towards remedying performance. 

• Improve content, focusing on EEAT 
• Check for any spammy SEO practices that are being used on the site
• Review pages to ensure they are properly showcasing experience and credentials
• Strategize for sustainable SEO for the future 
• Work with marketing professionals to come up with a game plan 

Coming back from a spam update hit can be stressful and difficult. However, with the help of top law firm marketers, it can be much less daunting. Our team at Postali has experience helping firms bounce back after a negative impact from Google spam and core algorithm updates. If you need expert guidance to get back on the right track, reach out to Postali today or contact us online. 

Secure Your Firm’s Future With Postali 

The August spam update isn’t a one-and-done thing. If your site doesn’t make the needed changes and continues to follow the standards set by Google, it will struggle to perform. That is where working with a marketing expert can set you up for success, now and going forward. 

We have experience in the complex and ever-changing SEO landscape, specifically for the legal field. Our law firm SEO experts can help you diagnose, solve, and fix the issues on your site. We have a team of legal content writers who craft quality content to help you maintain and improve your visibility, grow your authority, and avoid impacts from future Google updates. 

 

Turn the stress of a Google update into a strategic advantage for long-term and sustainable growth with the help of Postali today.