Today's web news at a glance: October 6, 2026
How long does Google take to index a new page? Google has now put numbers on its indexing times: about 20 hours to discover a new URL and about 1.5 hours to index it end to end in a typical case. Every day, our web agency in Tunis sums up what matters for your website. Also today: Google's fight against AI-generated spam, upcoming visual ads in ChatGPT, and a Google Ads setting switched on by default from October 12.
1. Google indexing times: the official numbers
At Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026 in Barcelona, Google's Gary Illyes showed the typical and slowest time for each stage of Search, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Land (October 5, 2026).
| Stage | Typical time | Slowest case |
|---|---|---|
| Discovering a new URL | ~20 hours | Weeks to never |
| Refreshing a known URL | ~30 days | Weeks to never |
| Sitemap processing | ~24 hours | Up to 14 days, or never (quality) |
| robots.txt update | ~24 hours | 25 hours |
| JavaScript rendering | Seconds to render, hours in the queue | Days to weeks |
| Indexing end to end | ~1.5 hours | Months or never (quality) |
| Site move | 1 to 3 months | 6 months to 1 year+ |
| Title or snippet update | 1 to 2 days | Several weeks to months |
| Removal in Search Console | ~2 hours | 24 hours |
| Core update recovery | 3 to 6 months | 6 months to 1 year |
What these indexing times mean for your site
- An up-to-date sitemap helps, but Google may ignore it if perceived quality is low: content remains the main lever.
- A known page is refreshed roughly every 30 days, so plan redesigns and title changes with that delay in mind.
- A site move takes months and needs clean 301 redirects, a key step in any website redesign in Tunisia.
2. Google filters 40 billion spam pages a day
At the same event, Google explained why 2026 has seen so many spam updates: "there is so much more new content than before", and low-quality AI content is growing. Google now uses AI to catch more spam, and Gary Illyes said Google filters out 40 billion spam pages a day (Search Engine Roundtable). Expect more spam updates: scaled, low-effort content is the main risk. We covered the latest wave in our web news for October 4.
3. OpenAI to test visual ads in ChatGPT
According to Search Engine Land, OpenAI will test a visual ad format later in October 2026 with a group of U.S. advertisers, shown during image generation in ChatGPT. Ads will be labeled and kept separate from generated images. OpenAI is also adding measurement integrations (Hightouch, Tealium, LiveRamp, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch, Northbeam and others) and says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people each week. No rollout outside the U.S. has been announced yet.
4. Google Ads: automated promotions from October 12
Some advertisers received an email: from October 12, 2026, Google Ads may automatically extract promotions (coupons, deals) from their website and show them in Search and Performance Max campaigns that have linked location assets and no existing promotion assets (Search Engine Roundtable).
How to stay in control
- Open the account-level automated assets settings.
- Find "Automated promotions".
- Select "Off" if the offers on your website should not appear in your ads.
Above all, make sure expired offers are removed from your site. Our Google Ads team in Tunisia can review these settings for you.
Also worth noting
The Search Console dark mode "announcement" made at the same event was a joke, according to John Mueller (source). For developers, the October 2026 Chrome DevTools update adds an Ads section in the Application panel and full soft navigation support in the Performance panel.
Are your pages properly indexed by Google?
Indexing audit and SEO support in Tunisia from our team in Tunis.