Google completes spam update and reveals HTML indexing limits

Google has completed its September 2026 spam update, which took approximately 14 days to implement between September 24 and October 8. This duration was notably longer than previous updates, which typically concluded in under three days. SEO professionals are advised to monitor Search Console for changes in impressions and clicks to assess the actual impact on rankings.

Regarding site crawling, Googlebot documentation specifies that the crawler reads only the first 2 MB of uncompressed HTML. A study of 86 major websites revealed that 20 sites, including CNN, Globo, Havaianas, and Mobly, exceed this 2 MB limit. While much of the excess weight in e-commerce sites often comes from JSON or hydration scripts, sites like CNN risk having critical content excluded from indexing if it appears after the 2 MB threshold.

Additionally, Google experts have provided estimated timelines for site recovery following core updates, suggesting a window of three to six months for sites to stabilize.