Web News Today: Google Spam Update Phase Two, AI Overviews Lawsuit Dismissed and New AI Content Guidance

Three stories lead the web news this week: Google's September 2026 spam update, which is still rolling out, the dismissal of a major publisher lawsuit against AI Overviews, and Google's renewed call for human review of AI-generated content. Here is what each means for your website.

September 2026 spam update: a second phase

Google launched the update on September 24, 2026. It applies globally to all languages, and Google said the rollout may take up to two weeks. That is unusual: according to Relevant Audience, the March, June and August 2026 spam updates were announced as taking a few days and finished in about three. Search Engine Roundtable reports a second phase on September 30.

Google did not name a specific target. Its existing spam policies remain the reference: cloaking, link abuse, hacked content, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. The update is algorithmic, with no notification, and recovery can take months.

What to do this week

• Watch rankings and organic traffic in Search Console until the rollout ends, and avoid panic changes.
• Review Google's spam policies and audit backlinks and mass-produced pages.
• Record the date of any drop to compare it with the rollout window.

AI Overviews: Penske Media lawsuit dismissed

US federal judge Amit P. Mehta dismissed the complaint by Penske Media (Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard) over Google's AI Overviews. The publishers argued Google used their content to answer queries directly and cut clicks. The court found no actual agreement had been pleaded: in the judge's words, "an expectation is not an agreement." See Search Engine Roundtable.

The practical takeaway: without a binding legal framework, visibility in AI answers depends on clear, well-structured, trustworthy content.

A false start: AI Overview tracking parameters

A ?st_source=ai_overview parameter was spotted on links from AI Overviews and AI Mode, suggesting Google was testing click attribution. It turned out to be a Chrome browser extension rewriting URLs, as noted in the updated article. There is currently no official way to isolate AI Overview traffic from the URL.

AI-generated content: manual review is critical

Google strengthened its guidance on generative AI content: it is critical to manually fact-check and review all AI-generated content, because models predict likely word sequences and can produce inaccuracies. See Search Engine Roundtable.