What is a Google spam update?

How it differs from a core update

A core update reassesses content quality broadly, and pages can drop without breaking any rule. A spam update targets policy violations. If your traffic fell during a spam update, the question isn't "is my content helpful enough?" but "does anything on this site break a spam policy?"

Neither produces a notice. Automated demotions don't appear in Search Console's Manual actions report, which lists only actions applied by human reviewers. See manual action vs algorithmic drop for how to tell them apart.

Link spam updates are different

Google singles out link spam updates. When its systems neutralize spammy links, any ranking benefit those links produced is gone, and Google says it can't be regained. So cleaning up after a link spam update may not bring rankings back: the lost position was propped up by links that no longer count. The fix is earning links that do count; the disavow tool is for rare cases, not a recovery button.

Policies that catch WordPress sites

Google's spam policies cover a long list. The ones that most often catch ordinary WordPress sites:

• Hacked content: injected pages or links from an outdated plugin or theme.
• User-generated spam in comments, forum posts or open registration profiles.
• Scaled content abuse: mass-produced pages with little value, however they were made; see scaled content abuse.
• Doorway abuse: near-identical city or keyword pages; see doorway pages.
• Site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse, where third-party or repurposed content rides on a site's standing.
• Link spam, including paid links without rel="sponsored".

Recovering

Fix the violation across the whole site, not a sample of pages. Google says improvement can come when its automated systems learn, over a period of months, that the site now complies. There's no review to request unless a manual action was also applied, in which case the Manual actions report shows it and major spam problems covers the process.