Google Spam Update Rolls Out, Publishers Eye AI Contribution Pilot
The October 2026 Google Webmaster Report highlighted several key updates and developments in the world of search. The September 2026 spam update, which is still rolling out, was a major focus of the report. This update aims to improve the quality of search results by penalizing websites that engage in spammy practices.
Google is also testing a new pilot program called AI Contribution, where publishers can earn small payouts for using Google's content in AI Mode and Gemini 3.8. However, the payouts are reportedly around 0.1% of ad revenue, which may not be significant for many publishers.
Additionally, Google released several updates to its search console, including a new multimodal search filter for performance reports and controls for AI performance reports. The company also fixed an indexing bug that caused some news content to go missing temporarily.