Diagnosis setup
Rankability
Google Spam Update Diagnosis
Client-ready investigation report ·
Updated for August 2026 Google Spam Update Checklist (August 2026)
72 checks with official Google references.
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Initial diagnosis
11 checksDiagnosis setup
Confirm the rollout is complete before treating short-term volatility as a settled outcome.
GoogleNote
Measurement
Verify the loss in Google Search Console, not only in Google Analytics or a rank tracker.
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Measurement
Determine whether clicks, impressions, average position, CTR, or indexed pages actually declined.
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Measurement
Compare the affected period with both the previous period and the same period year over year.
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Segmentation
Determine whether the loss is sitewide or isolated by query, URL, folder, template, country, device, search appearance, or search type.
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Note
Note
CTR versus rankings
If positions and impressions are stable but clicks fell, investigate CTR and SERP changes rather than a ranking penalty.
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Demand versus rankings
If positions are stable but impressions fell, investigate seasonality or declining search demand.
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Other changes
Check for overlapping Google updates, Search incidents, site deployments, redesigns, migrations, CMS changes, hosting changes, or template changes.
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Content and spam
21 checksCloaking
Compare what Googlebot receives with what users receive, including differences by user agent, IP, device, location, referrer, or login state.
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Doorway abuse
Look for near-duplicate city, service, product, or keyword pages, or multiple sites that funnel users to the same destination.
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Expired domain abuse
Check whether an expired domain was repurposed or redirected mainly to inherit authority for unrelated or low-value content.
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Hidden text and links
Check for white-on-white, zero-opacity, zero-size, off-screen, behind-image, or otherwise invisible text and links.
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Keyword stuffing
Check for unnatural repetition or blocks of keywords, cities, regions, phone numbers, services, products, or entities.
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Scaled content abuse
Identify large batches of AI-generated, automated, programmatic, or templated pages that don't add meaningful value.
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Scaled content abuse
Check for mass translation, synonym replacement, spinning, obfuscation, or stitched content with little original contribution.
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Scaled content abuse
Check whether multiple sites hide the operation's scale or whether pages contain keywords but don't fully satisfy a real user need.
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Scraping
Check for republished, lightly rewritten, feed-based, embed-only, aggregation, image, video, or social content with little unique benefit.
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Site reputation abuse
Check whether third-party, white-label, freelance, sponsored, coupon, review, or unrelated content is hosted mainly to use the site's established ranking signals.
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Site reputation abuse
Check whether subdomains, subdirectories, or sections are effectively rented to outside publishers for SEO benefit.
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Sneaky redirects
Check whether users and Googlebot receive different destinations or unexpected redirects based on device, location, browser, referrer, or source.
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Thin affiliation
Check whether affiliate pages copy merchant or network content and lack original testing, experience, comparisons, data, tools, pricing, or decision support.
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Content quality
Check whether the site's primary purpose is helping an existing audience or manufacturing search traffic.
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Content quality
Check whether the site expanded into unrelated topics mainly because those topics had search demand.
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Content quality
Check whether pages provide original research, firsthand experience, expert analysis, or a meaningful unique contribution.
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Content quality
Check whether pages mostly summarize other sources without adding substantial value.
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Content quality
Check whether authorship, ownership, sourcing, review methods, and use of automation are accurate and transparent.
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Content quality
Check for unsupported claims, factual errors, stale information, misleading conclusions, or pages that no longer satisfy search intent.
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Content quality
Check whether recent edits removed useful sections, evidence, expert input, media, or other unique information.
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Content quality
Check for thin, duplicate, tag, search, filter, archive, cannibalizing, or other low-value indexable pages at scale.
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Links
4 checksLink spam
Audit links that were bought, sold, exchanged for products or services, or acquired mainly for ranking purposes.
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Link spam
Check paid guest posts, advertorials, native ads, sponsorships, and press releases for unqualified followed links.
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Link spam
Check for excessive exchanges, automated links, low-quality directories, bookmark sites, forums, widgets, or sitewide template links.
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Link spam
Audit outgoing paid links and low-value content created mainly to attract, exchange, or pass ranking signals.
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Technical SEO
11 checksTechnical SEO
Check robots.txt for accidental disallow rules affecting important pages or resources.
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Note
Technical SEO
Check whether canonical tags changed, point to the wrong URL, conflict with redirects, or cause Google to select another canonical.
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Technical SEO
Check migrations, redirects, redirect chains, loops, temporary redirects, and irrelevant redirect targets.
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Technical SEO
Check for spikes in 4xx, soft 404, 5xx, timeout, DNS, server, hosting, CDN, WAF, rate-limit, or bot-protection errors.
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Technical SEO
Use URL Inspection to confirm Google can render the main content, links, metadata, and resources.
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Technical SEO
Check mobile and desktop parity for content, links, robots directives, structured data, and metadata.
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Technical SEO
Check whether navigation, internal links, sitemaps, or URL changes made important pages harder to discover.
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Technical SEO
Check whether faceted navigation, parameters, internal search, duplicates, or stale URLs are wasting crawl resources.
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Search appearance
Check whether structured-data errors or policy violations caused the loss of rich results and CTR.
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Page experience
Check Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, mobile usability, intrusive interstitials, excessive ads, and whether the main content is easy to identify.
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AI visibility
9 checksAI visibility measurement
Confirm the Google AI visibility decline using Search Console's Generative AI performance report and Web performance data.
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AI visibility scope
Determine whether the decline is limited to Google's AI features or also appears in third-party AI platforms.
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AI visibility eligibility
Confirm affected pages remain indexed and eligible to show a Search snippet.
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AI visibility eligibility
Confirm the site is included in Search generative AI features in Search Console.
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AI visibility eligibility
Check for noindex, nosnippet, data-nosnippet, or restrictive max-snippet directives.
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AI visibility eligibility
Confirm robots.txt, hosting, CDN, firewall, or bot protection isn't blocking Googlebot.
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AI visibility eligibility
Confirm important information is crawlable text, important pages aren't orphaned, and structured data matches visible content.
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AI visibility eligibility
Confirm Merchant Center and Google Business Profile information is accurate and current where applicable.
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AI manipulation risk
Check for mass long-tail rewrites, unnecessary AI-specific pages, or inauthentic mentions created mainly to influence generative answers.
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Security and manual actions
11 checksNote
Security
Check the Search Console Security Issues report for hacking, malware, or harmful behavior.
GoogleNote
Hacked content
Search for unauthorized pages, directories, subdomains, sitemaps, files, JavaScript, iframes, links, hidden text, or conditional redirects.
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Machine-generated traffic
Check whether internal tools or vendors send unauthorized automated queries or scrape Google Search results.
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Malicious practices
Scan downloads, scripts, plugins, ads, and pages for malware, unwanted software, or back-button hijacking.
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Misleading functionality
Check for fake tools, generators, downloads, calculators, support pages, or services that lead to deceptive ads or don't deliver what they promise.
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User-generated spam
Audit comments, forums, profiles, listings, uploads, and public pages, along with registration, moderation, link, and indexing controls.
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Legal removals
Check for a significant volume of valid copyright, defamation, counterfeit, or court-ordered removal requests.
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Personal information removals
Check for repeated removals involving exploitative removal practices, doxxing, or non-consensual explicit content.
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Policy circumvention
Check whether violating content or behavior was moved to new URLs, folders, subdomains, domains, or mirror sites.
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Scam and fraud
Check for impersonation, fake support, false contact details, deceptive offers, or materially false claims about identity, pricing, payments, or outcomes.
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External causes
5 checksExternal cause
Check Google Trends and year-over-year data for seasonality, declining demand, or changing user interests.
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External cause
Review whether competitors published stronger, fresher, or more useful content or whether dominant search intent changed.
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External cause
Check whether AI Overviews, ads, featured snippets, local packs, shopping results, or other SERP changes reduced organic clicks.
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External cause
Check whether valuable backlinks disappeared, linking pages were removed, or redirect changes broke link equity.
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External cause
If Search Console clicks are stable but analytics traffic fell, audit analytics tags, consent settings, attribution, and landing-page tracking.
GoogleNote
Diagnosis summary
0
Reviewed
0
Potential issues
0
Clear
0
N/A
Potential issues reviewed
No potential issues were marked.
Next steps
Mark potential issues to build your plan.
No potential issues yet.
0
Initial diagnosis
Confirm where visibility and traffic changed
Cross-reference rankings, queries, pages, traffic, and reporting dates before assigning a cause.
Rankability
GSC, GA4, Tracker
0
Content and spam
Audit and improve affected content
Compare affected pages with search competitors, on-page requirements, content coverage, and differentiation opportunities.
Rankability
Page Auditor + Copywriter
0
Links
Inspect backlink and anchor-text patterns
Review backlink trends, referring domains, anchor distribution, and the pages receiving the most links.
Rankability
Promoter
0
Technical SEO
Check affected pages for technical blockers
Inspect on-page technical health, canonical signals, structured data, and page-experience evidence.
Rankability
Page Auditor
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AI visibility
Measure AI answers, mentions, and citations
Track whether the brand appears in AI answers, which pages earn citations, and how visibility changes over time.
Rankability
Tracker
0
Security and manual actions
Verify private Search Console and security evidence
Check Manual Actions, Security Issues, removal notices, access logs, and compromised content directly. No public tool can prove these for you.
Rankability
Search Console + human review
0
External causes
Separate site problems from market changes
Compare visibility trends, competitors, search-result movement, and traffic patterns before changing the site.
Rankability
Tracker
Share links exclude notes.
Based on Google Search documentation. A potential issue is a lead—not proof of a penalty.
Questions
Does a traffic drop during a Google spam update prove the site violated a spam policy?
No. Timing alone does not establish a cause. Confirm the dates, segment the loss, and rule out reporting, technical, demand, and search-result changes before drawing a conclusion.
Where is my checklist progress saved?
Progress is stored only in this browser using local storage. Rankability does not require an account or send your checklist selections to a server. If you create a share link, it contains only the 72 review statuses in the URL fragment—never your domain, notes, or account data.
What does a shared diagnosis link contain?
The link contains a compact, browser-readable copy of the checklist statuses. URL fragments are not sent to Rankability’s web server, but anyone you give the link to can view the selections, so share it only with the intended recipient.