As you know, Google does smaller core updates and algorithm search updates all the time without announcing them - Google just does not disclose all updates. So why does Google announce some of those updates and not the others. Well, as Google told us before, Google announces the larger, more impactful updates so we know it was a Google update that impacted our site, not a technical change we made.
John Mueller from Google was asked about this again and he was given the same line. Google has to pick and choose which updates it announces, and it tries to just announce the larger updates that impact more sites versus smaller updates that impact fewer sites. This way, Google does not cause unnecessary concern, worry, or anxiety.
Eli Schwartz (no relation) asked:
Why after 26 years does there need to be an update to get rid of spam instead of it just happening on its own with existing algorithms?
John Mueller replied on LinkedIn:
We have lots of systems that update continuously (most of them update automatically), but when we make bigger / broader changes to the systems, we try to announce them so that it's easier for folks if they see a big jump in their metrics. That said, it's sometimes hard to find a good balance between giving some transparency & causing unnecessary worries.
Yep, he said "it's sometimes hard to find a good balance between giving some transparency & causing unnecessary worries."
Here is a screenshot of those posts:
Again, not new, but probably worth repeating. So this is why Google may have announced the August 2026 spam update and not some of the other unconfirmed updates we covered before.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
