Google’s spam update and weekly blogs that only rewrite the news
This one is about us first. The lazy weekly rhythm is to open industry sites, take four headlines, and turn them into four “what this means for SMEs” posts with the same outline. Readers get tired of it. Search will not treat those four posts as four different answers just because the titles changed.
Google started rolling the August spam update around 18 August. Search Engine Journal collected owner reports: scaled pages, thin affiliates, programmatic content. Google did not say “all AI text is spam.” What gets hit is usually the same mould, shipped at volume, with no extra truth.
We changed the openings on purpose
Some of our notes start on a Search Console screen. Some start with a customer scrolling on a phone. Some start from a LINE thread at night. The sources are still the official posts and the industry write-ups, but each note needs a scene you have actually heard: the form goes out and nobody receives it, the summary names the wrong city, support types the price list a second time. A draft without that scene is not finished. Do not publish it yet.
We already warned against pasting other people’s news and calling it your own result — see content credit. The line to add this time: a fixed weekly quota becomes scaled content too. If the writer hands the draft over and nobody else reads it, the quota pushes out another reskin.
Ask before you hit publish
- If you strip the news date, is the piece still useful?
- Is there a sentence a customer would actually say?
- Can the source be opened?
- Does it clone last month’s post?
- Does the button go to a real page, not “learn more”?
“Still useful without the date” means this: cross out “the update started 18 August.” Can the remaining sentences help someone who arrives next month make a decision? If all that is left is “Google changed something, stay tuned,” you wrote a daily, not a note. The person who owns the content leaves that draft unpublished instead of shipping it to fill the week.
The reviewer answers the questions. They do not polish adjectives. After the news date is gone, can next month’s reader still decide something? Is there a sentence a customer would actually say? Does the source link open? Does the piece wear the same skeleton as last month’s note? Does the button go to a real page — services, contact, or the structure note — rather than “learn more”? If one answer is no, the draft goes back to the writer and gets finished next week on the same piece. Do not open four new headline rewrites to fill this week’s slot.
Give three drafts to someone who knows the business, not to the writer. We ask which one they would forward to a client. If they cannot name one, the batch waits. Waiting means the weekly quota can stay empty. Finishing one note across two weeks is steadier than five posts in a week on the same skeleton. If search later acts on that kind of scaled set, what comes down is usually the whole mould, not a single rewritten title.
FAQs
Can we still cover industry news?
Yes. The writer has to add their own judgment, a scene they have actually heard, and the next question a buyer would ask. Reposting someone else’s piece under a new title helps neither search nor the reader.
Is drafting with AI against the rules?
Google is looking at whether you are shipping low-value pages at scale, not at the name of the tool. Our own rule is: a tool may draft, but the person who signs off still checks the facts, the sources, and the scene before publishing.
How often is safe?
There is no official number of days. The person who owns the content would rather finish one note in two weeks than publish five posts in one week on the same skeleton. The test is whether the piece is still useful after the news date is removed, not whether the calendar has an empty slot.
Talk about site copy Other notes
Source: SEJ SEO Pulse (August spam update).