Interested in staying up-to-date with the latest SEO news? In September’s round-up, we’ll be discussing some of the biggest updates from the last few weeks, including Google’s latest spam update, brand-new AI reporting in Google Search Console and the unexpected case of the disappearing favicons.
September SEO Summary
After what has already been a pretty eventful year for search, August certainly gave SEOs plenty more to talk about.
Google rolled out another spam update, finally gave website owners dedicated visibility data for AI performance and briefly managed to remove the favicons of some of the biggest websites on the internet.
So, there is quite a bit to get through.
Table of Contents
- Google’s August 2026 spam update is complete
- Google has rolled out its own AI reports (finally…)
- Favicons have been disappearing from Google search results
The BIG Updates
1. Google’s August 2026 Spam Update Is Complete
Another month, another Google update.
Google began rolling out its August 2026 spam update on August 18th, with the update completing just a few days later on August 21st, just 2 days and 16 hours later to be exact.
Unlike some previous updates, Google didn’t provide us with a particularly juicy list of changes this time around. It described this as a normal spam update, applying globally and across all languages. Google also confirmed that this wasn’t specifically a link spam update.
What was the August 2026 spam update?
Google’s spam detection systems run continuously in the background, but every so often Google makes significant improvements to these systems and announces what it calls a “spam update”.
These updates are designed to improve Google’s ability to identify websites using techniques which manipulate its search results rather than genuinely helping users.
Google hasn’t confirmed exactly which areas of its spam systems were changed during the August update. What we do know is that it targeted websites violating at least some of Google’s existing spam policies.
What are Google’s current spam policies?
As of September 2026, Google’s spam policies cover a pretty wide range of practices.
Some of the ones most website owners and marketers should be aware of include:
- Cloaking
- Doorway pages
- Expired domain abuse
- Hidden text and links
- Keyword stuffing
- Link spam
- Scaled content abuse
- Scraped content
- Site reputation abuse
- Sneaky redirects
- User-generated spam
- Misleading functionality
One particularly relevant area continues to be scaled content abuse.
This includes producing large volumes of low-value or unoriginal content primarily to manipulate rankings. Importantly, Google makes it clear that this isn’t simply an “AI content policy”. Mass-generating pages using AI is one example, but the policy applies regardless of how the content was created.
Google also made a separate change to its site reputation policy at the end of August, changing how manual actions under this policy affect results shown within the European Economic Area. This does not include the UK.
What does this mean for your website?
Well, if you haven’t been abusing any of the policies listed above, give yourself a pat on the back because you have nothing to worry about (this time).
However, If you have noticed a considerable drop in organic performance around August 18th–21st, this update is definitely worth investigating.
I’d suggest first checking Google Search Console for any manual actions and reviewing your site against Google’s spam policies.
It’s worth remembering that not every site impacted by a spam update will receive a manual action. Google uses automated spam detection systems too, meaning a decline in performance can occur without a warning appearing in Search Console. Google also warns that recovery after making improvements can take several months as its systems reassess a site. Plus, if you were previously benefiting from spammy links that Google has since identified and discounted, you may naturally have less authority and find it harder to rank.
Ultimately if you’ve spotted a suspicious decline and aren’t quite sure what caused it, speak to the SEO team at Algebra and we can help you.
2. Google Has Rolled Out Its Own AI Report (finally…)
This is probably something we should have been writing a year-or-so ago at least, however we can finally report that we can review AI Search performance directly in Google Search Console (kind of…)
For what feels like forever, one of the biggest frustrations surrounding AI Overviews and AI Mode has been a lack of meaningful visibility data directly from Google.
On August 31st 2026, Google confirmed that its new generative AI performance reports had finished rolling out to websites worldwide.
Where can you find the report?
The new report sits within Google Search Console and provides a dedicated view of your website’s performance within Google’s generative AI search features. we’ll add a screenshot below showing exactly where you can find it.
It covers visibility within:
- AI Overviews
- AI Mode
- Generative AI features within Discover
What does the report actually show?
The only somewhat useful metric currently available is impressions.
Google allows you to see how frequently your website has appeared within its generative AI features, alongside several useful dimensions including:
- Pages
- Countries
- Devices
- Dates
This means that, for the first time, you can use first-party Google data to identify which pages on your website are actually receiving visibility within AI Overviews and AI Mode.
What are the pros?
The biggest positive is simply having the data.
Until now, understanding your visibility within Google’s AI experiences has largely meant relying on third-party tools, carrying out manual searches or trying to piece together referral data.
We can now see directly from Google which URLs are gaining AI visibility, visibility trends over time and which countries and devices those impressions are coming from.
This gives us a much stronger starting point for measuring whether the work we’re doing to improve visibility within AI search is actually having an impact.
What are the cons?
Unfortunately, Google hasn’t given us everything just yet.
At the moment, the report tells you that your website appeared within an AI feature, but it doesn’t tell you whether somebody actually clicked through to your website as a result.
There is also no query-level reporting, meaning we can’t see the specific searches which triggered those appearances.
So while 10,000 AI impressions might look nice on a report, we still don’t know whether they resulted in 1,000 visits, 10 visits or no visits at all.
How should you use the data?
For now, we wouldn’t recommend looking at Google’s AI report in isolation. Instead, use it alongside other available data.
Bing Webmaster Tools, for example, has had AI Performance reporting since February 2026 which provides citation data, page-level visibility and something particularly interesting called grounding queries. These are grouped phrases associated with the content Bing and Microsoft Copilot used when generating AI answers.
Third-party SEO platforms can then provide another layer of information by monitoring AI citations, prompts and competitor visibility across multiple platforms.
Combining these sources won’t give you perfect attribution, but it starts to build a much clearer picture of where your brand is appearing within AI search and, more importantly, where there are opportunities to improve.
3. Favicons Have Been Disappearing From Google Search Results
If you’ve recently been seeing a little globe in place of where a brand logo should be on SERPs, you weren’t imagining things.
Whilst I’ve noticed favicons disappearing in the past, there has definitely been a spike in missing favicons during August, with a number of websites in search results repping Google’s generic globe icon instead of their usual logo. Whilst this can happen from time-to-time, it was still a shock to see LinkedIn being on that list.
What is a favicon?
A favicon is the small icon used to visually represent a website. You’ll normally see it within your browser tabs, bookmarks and, importantly for SEO, next to a website’s listing within Google’s search results.
They’re tiny, but they play a useful role in helping users quickly recognise brands while scanning the SERPs.
So, what happened?
When LinkedIn’s favicon disappeared, webmasters quickly pointed out that there didn’t appear to be anything technically wrong with its implementation. For example, the favicon was square, crawlable and correctly configured.
Google eventually confirmed on August 21st 2026 that the issue was actually on their side, rather than something website owners had done wrong. By August 23rd, reports suggested that the issue had largely been fixed.
So if your favicon briefly disappeared during August and then magically returned without you changing anything, this was probably why.
What are Google’s current favicon guidelines?
Coincidentally, Google also updated its favicon documentation on August 28th.
The latest guidance states that your favicon should:
- Have a 1:1 square aspect ratio
- Be at least 8×8px
- Ideally be larger than 48×48px
- Be crawlable by Googlebot-Image
- Use a stable URL (that doesn’t change frequently)
- Clearly represent your website’s brand
Google currently supports BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF files.
It is also worth remembering that meeting all of these requirements doesn’t guarantee Google will display your favicon.
However, if yours is still missing now that the wider Google bug appears to have been resolved, checking the points above would be a sensible place to start.
Need Help Navigating These SEO Updates?
If you think your site has been affected by any of these updates, or you’d like to understand what they could mean for your organic performance, get in touch with our SEO team.