September 2026 Google Spam Update Analysis

Winners were more transparent about commercial relationships

We also noticed that winning pages tended to be more transparent about their commercial relationships.

This is what we found:

• 40.4% of winning pages included an affiliate disclosure, compared with just 19.4% of losing pages.
• Approximately 64.0% of the affiliate links on winning pages were marked appropriately, compared with 47.7% on losing pages.

This is also clearly stated in the spam policies documentation where Google acknowledges that advertising or sponsorship is a normal part of the economy, but requires such links to be qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute.

Monetization was not associated with losing traffic

One reassuring finding for travel bloggers is that monetized pages were not more likely to lose traffic. Quite the opposite, affiliate links and advertising were actually both detected more frequently on winning pages.

We found the following:

• 55.9% of winning pages contained detected affiliate links, compared with 41.9% of losing pages.
• Winning pages contained more detected affiliate links per article.
• Some of the most heavily commercial affiliate pages in our sample still gained traffic.

The same patterns show in advertising:

• Advertising was detected on 73.5% of winning pages.
• By comparison, they were detected on 58.1% of losing pages.

This also doesn’t mean the opposite, that Google was deliberately rewarding monetized websites. It simply shows that what matters most is how monetization is handled, not that it is there in the first place.

Winning articles tended to be more comprehensive

Another difference we noticed was that winning articles tended to be longer and show more signs of first-hand experience (used phrases such as ‘’we visited’’, “I stayed’’ etc.).

• The median winning article contained 2,058 words, compared with 1,329 words for losing articles.
• 75.0% of winning pages were classified as experience-rich, compared with 64.5% of losing pages.

This, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. Just because an article is longer doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily better. The finding above simply suggests that the winning articles had more opportunities to share more quality content, not that the extra words were used just for the sake of length.

First-hand experience was not a guarantee of success

First-hand experience was more common among winners, but several losing articles also contained pretty strong original work.

One losing article included a detailed personal account, original photography, practical technical advice, a named author and a substantive biography. Another documented extensive original travel and first-hand testing, yet unfortunately the website still lost traffic.

This doesn’t mean that first-hand experience doesn’t matter (quite the opposite). It could just suggest that Google was simply not focusing on this area in this particular update.

Automated spammy backlinks affected both winners and losers

One of the more surprising findings was how common apparently automated spammy backlinks were among both winners and losers. These are usually created without the website owner’s involvement by low-quality and malicious websites.

We analyzed the backlink profiles of 16 losing websites and 16 similarly sized winners:

• All 16 losing websites had suspicious links using templated or spammy anchor text.
• 14 of the 16 winners also had links identified as potentially spammy.

This is quite reassuring for bloggers who notice strange links appearing in their backlink profiles. Disavowing links in Search Console was once a more common SEO practice, though nowadays Google has gotten smarter mainly thanks to SpamBrain, its spam prevention system. However, this is quite different from deliberately participating in link schemes, which should still be avoided, as Google can tell the difference.

Advice for travel bloggers

Since authorship has emerged as one of our strongest findings, we are dedicating a whole section to tips on how to make sure your website’s aligned with this particular policy.

Authorship recommendations

Add a named byline to every article. Use the author’s real name rather than “Admin,” “Editorial Team” or the name of the website.

Link the byline to a dedicated author page. The author page should tell us more about the person behind the content.

Make author bios specific. Mention destinations the author knows well, how long they have been travelling etc… Simply saying “passionate about travel” provides very little background.

Include a short bio on the article itself. This one should be shorter than the author bio on author pages, but still include relevant information.

Show evidence of the author’s work. Make sure there are links to social profiles, books, media appearances, awards etc.

Keep authorship information consistent. The name in the byline, author profile and article structured data should refer to the same person.

Distinguish between writers and reviewers. It would be best to explain each person’s role. If an article was written by one person but fact-checked or reviewed by someone else, make sure to have it state just that.

Other recommendations

Show your experience: Include original photographs, personal observations and practical details. Try and always ask yourself what could make your experience stand out and be different from another (especially generic) one.

Review similar articles together: If you have many destination or affiliate pages following the same template, check whether they contain enough unique information. Just changing the location name while keeping the same template doesn’t provide useful information for a reader.

Don’t be afraid to monetize: Affiliate links and advertising were common among winners, so monetization itself was not the problem. What you should pay attention to is that you’re clearly stating you’re labeling sponsored content.

Be transparent: Clearly disclose commercial relationships and mark affiliate links as sponsored or nofollow.

Quality still beats quantity: Make sure you’re covering a topic comprehensively, but don’t just add words for the sake of it.

Don’t panic about automated backlinks: As you could see above, strange unsolicited links affected both winners and losers, so avoid making drastic changes based on them alone. However, we strongly advise against buying links or participating in link schemes to manipulate rankings.

Analyze individual pages: If you lost traffic, compare the pages that declined with those that remained stable or gained instead of looking for one site-wide explanation.

Make changes page by page rather than deleting content in bulk: Identify patterns among the pages that lost traffic, then improve the pages that genuinely lack originality or transparency.

Most importantly, don’t rely on one signal alone: We noticed that first-hand information alone didn’t seem to make a difference this time around, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Always focus on creating genuinely useful content, rather than optimizing for one winning factor only.