Google Doubles Down on AI to Fight Rising Search Spam

Google has intensified its efforts to combat spam in search results, rolling out multiple updates in 2026. During the Google Search Central Live Deep Dive event in Europe, representatives explained that the surge in spam updates is driven by the exponential growth of new content, much of it low-quality or AI-generated. The company is now leveraging AI to identify and filter out spam more effectively, addressing issues like cloaking, doorway pages, and scraped content.

Gary Illyes, a key figure at Google, revealed that the search engine filters out 40 billion spam pages daily. He highlighted three reasons for the increased focus on spam updates: the expansion of content formats beyond traditional text, the sheer volume of new pages and sites, and the rise of scaled, low-effort content. Illyes warned that AI-generated slop, poor-quality content, is becoming a more significant problem than traditional link spam.

The event also emphasized the importance of user feedback in developing new spam filters. Google’s quality assessment now considers factors like effort, originality, talent, and accuracy at the page level rather than the domain level. This approach explains why some pages on a site may rank higher while others drop in search results.

Experts like Nacho Mascort and Aleyda Solis shared practical advice for content audits, urging creators to assess the value and uniqueness of their content. They recommended evaluating whether scaled content maintains its quality when expanded and whether replacing a brand with a competitor’s would still offer the same utility.