Google Spam Update, Image Search Data In GSC – SEO Pulse via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Welcome to the Pulse: this week’s updates change how long a spam update may take to roll out, what Search Console reports for image searches, how an error page can keep pages out of search, and what two reports say about traffic from Google.

Here’s what matters for you and your work.

Google Rolls Out The September 2026 Spam Update

Google began rolling out the September 2026 spam update on Sept. 24, with a rollout window of up to two weeks.

Key facts:

The update started at 9:15 a.m. PDT and applies globally and to all languages, according to Google’s Search Status Dashboard. It’s the fourth spam update of 2026, after March, June, and August. Google gave each of those a rollout window of “a few days,” and none took longer than 2 days and 16 hours. Google hasn’t said what this update targets.

Why This Matters

The rollout window is longer than Google gave any spam update this year, so the first few days of data may not show the full effect. Check the dates of any ranking or traffic changes in Search Console against the rollout. Google says sites affected by a spam update should review its spam policies.

Read our full coverage: Google Rolls Out September 2026 Spam Update Globally

Search Console Adds A Filter For Image-Based Searches

Google is rolling out a multimodal filter in Search Console’s Performance report for searches where someone used an image.

Key facts:

Google’s announcement says the data covers Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and Chrome’s right-click “Search this image” feature. The option sits under the Web search type, and the rollout is global. Query data isn’t available, because multimodal searches “mostly use images rather than text,” according to Google’s dimensions help page. Google says multimodal reporting is also rolling out to the generative AI performance report.

Why This Matters

Stores and other sites with product photos get a page-level view of what people reach when they search with an image. You can compare those pages with text-search traffic by country and device. A product page with multimodal clicks won’t tell you what image the person used.

Read our full coverage: Google Search Console Adds Multimodal Filter For Image-Based Searches

Mueller Responds To A De-Indexing Case Involving A Casino Site

Google’s John Mueller responded to a Reddit report of pages leaving Google’s index while an unrelated casino site appeared as their canonical.

Key facts:

The site owner wrote that Google treated a casino betting page as the canonical for pages about companies and suppliers. Another Redditor described the same thing on their site, found the third-party canonical indexed under a generic JavaScript error title, and suspected Googlebot had crawled an error page. Mueller said that could be an option and pointed to Search Console’s live URL test. In a second reply, he said each possible outcome leaves the page “not showing in search for normal content.”

Why This Matters

Mueller’s advice is to catch a broken page before Googlebot does. He runs automated tests before pushing his own sites live and suggested fetching critical pages on a schedule “so that you can fix them before they become stable problems for search engines to pick up.”

Read our full coverage: Google Responds To Cross-Domain Canonical De-Indexing Report

Chartbeat Finds Google Search Decline Steepened For Publishers

Google Search and Discover declines got steeper in the second year across Chartbeat’s publisher network, according to its 2026 Publisher Playbook.

Key facts:

Google Search fell 40.2% year over year from July 2025 to July 2026, after a 21.9% decline the year before. Discover’s decline grew from 6.6% to 34.3%. The playbook doesn’t say whether those figures measure pageviews or each channel’s share of pageviews, and the network skews toward news and media publishers. Direct, internal, and dark social traffic grew their share of pageviews over the two years.

Why This Matters

You can set your own July-to-July Search and Discover trend next to these figures, keeping in mind the network leans toward news. Chartbeat describes the channels that grew as ones media companies have “greater control over.”

Read our full coverage: Google Search Decline Steepened To 40% YoY For Publishers

Forced AI Mode Cut Clicks To Websites In A Field Experiment

A preprint field experiment found that sending people’s Google searches to AI Mode reduced how often they clicked through to other websites.

Key facts:

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University used a browser extension to track 1,100 U.S. participants through a three-day baseline and seven days of treatment. People assigned to AI Mode clicked through to other websites 18.8 percentage points less often than people using regular Google Search, and they gave lower ratings for trust in information on Google and for satisfaction with search. Participants used AI Mode for 0.6% of their searches during the baseline, so the authors describe the setup as a forced, full-adoption scenario.

Why This Matters

Google’s Liz Reid wrote in August 2025 that organic click volume from Search to websites had been “relatively stable” year over year. This experiment measured a different case, where searches are sent to AI Mode. The click drop shows what full adoption looked like in this sample, not a forecast for any one site.

Read our full coverage: Research Shows Google AI Mode Sends Less Clicks & Is A Poor User Experience

Theme Of The Week: The Check Runs On Your Side

Each story this week hands part of the work back to your own data. The spam update comes without a stated target, so any ranking or traffic changes in Search Console get checked against the rollout dates. The multimodal filter shows pages but no queries, and Mueller’s answer to a de-indexing scare was to test and monitor your own pages. Chartbeat’s network and the AI Mode experiment’s sample aren’t your site, so neither tells you what happened to your traffic. As Search Console splits traffic into more views, more of the explaining lands in the records you keep.

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Featured Image: Ground Picture/Shutterstock