Keep Doing You: Why Authenticity Wins Online
At the end of August 2026, Google has updated its spam policies for the third time this year. This can affect your ranking, depending on how Google has measured you in the past.
So, what does this mean for your website?
Our foundation is authentic and ethical growth online of your website. The goal is for these spam updates to not impact your visibility, because nothing you/we have done is spam.
What is spam? And what does it mean when there is a spam update?
“In the context of Google Search, spam refers to techniques used to deceive users or manipulate our Search systems into featuring content prominently, such as attempting to manipulate Search systems into ranking content highly or attempting to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search.”
Google has many automations in place to ensure they are able to detect spam. One of them being an AI spam-prevention software called SpamBrain.
This is to benefit and protect all of us, as I am sure we can all relate to not loving spam.
As consumers it is great that Google is constantly reviewing and ensuring the quality of what they are recommending to users. We want to be able to trust the information when we go online or employ someone's services, that it is true and correct, that the reviews are real and not fabricated.
Google's high standards for this and review of these standards is pretty important in the digital world really. And again reinforces the importance of ethical and authentic practices.
If it seems weird, it probably is, so trust your gut!
So, what is deemed as spam?
Google's spam policies include:
Scaled content abuse
Cloaking
Doorway abuse
Expired domain abuse
Hacked content
Hidden link and text abuse
Keyword stuffing
Link spam
Machine-generated traffic
Misleading functionality
What is scaled content abuse?
Scaled content abuse is the one I will speak to here as it's very relevant right now, due to the use of AI.
Basically, just because it's easy to create AI content, it doesn’t mean you should!
This spam policy of Google's means that if you are to do that, create numerous unusual pages, especially if they are hidden to the readers, it's going to impact your rankings.
This policy reinforces the importance of being useful. Of creating answer-first content, in your own words. So that the people who are reading your content are feeling informed and receive information that is actually useful.
What happens if you notice a change in your ranking after a Google spam update?
To directly quote Google:
“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.”
From there you can make changes relevant to where you may have unintentionally “gone wrong.” Becuase thats a whole piece of it too right, especially for small businesses who are doing all their own digital visibility, you see something online and try it because you want to get your business ranking. And unknowingly take the wrong advice, which could impact your ranking. Which is so easy to do in this age of information, and with AI being so ready with exactly what you want to hear.
To ground this in further though and not to scare you, but to instead reassure you. For most people its hard to go wrong when you stick to your business values. To read more about what you can do here and what that actually looks like, skip straight to the last paragraph of this blog.
Keeping up with the policies
In Google’s own words:
“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.”
We interpret this as how important it is to build a foundation of authentic and consistent digital marketing presence.
If your site benefited from spammy/manipulative backlinks, and Google later detects those links and neutralizes their effect, Google is saying that the ranking boost from those particular links is permanently gone.
The crucial phrase is:
“Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.”
So if you clean up your website, removing bad links, improving your content, etc., you shouldn't expect Google to simply give you back the exact ranking boost those spammy links used to provide.
Instead, your site has to earn rankings based on the signals Google considers valid going forward.
So in a sense it's kind of like starting fresh.
What if your website rankings are impacted?
If your website rankings are impacted, this does not mean that:
Your website will never rank again
Your website can’t recover its traffic
Google has permanently penalised your entire domain
Legitimate links you build in the future won't help
A solution if you find your website in this position is to create an ethical backlink campaign.
We offer this as part of our ongoing visibility partnership services.
Contact us if you would like to hear how we can support you with this.
In summary: Keep doing you!
In the spirit of simplification, you just gotta keep being you. Authenticity is key online, and this starts in the real world, not the digital one!
Build relationships in real life, then connect your websites online.
Speak on podcasts.
Share others' useful information.
Team up on an ad campaign.
Do your service really well so you get great reviews.
In our opinion, online visibility is not a magic trick, it's simple, authentic consistency over time.
Love to hear from you if this resonates, comment below. Or get in touch if you have any questions.
Choose luminera to support you to win online through your own authenticity.
