December 2022 link spam update: dates, what changed and what to do

What Google changed#

Google announced the December 2022 link spam update on 14 December 2022, saying it was “leveraging the power of SpamBrain to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on search results.” SpamBrain is Google’s AI-based spam-prevention system. Google wrote that it “can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.”

The effect Google described was a loss of link credit: “Ranking may change as spammy links are neutralized and any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost.” The update applied to all languages.

When it rolled out#

Google said at launch the update would take about two weeks to fully roll out. It took longer. The Search Status Dashboard dates it from 14 December 2022 and says the rollout was complete as of 12 January 2023, a 29-day run. The dashboard entries are timestamped 22 March 2023, when Google added ranking updates to it.

It overlapped the December 2022 helpful content update, which began on 5 December 2022 and also finished on 12 January 2023. A change in that window could come from either update, so check whether the pages that moved rely on links or on content before drawing conclusions.

What is known about its impact#

Google gave one figure, for detection rather than traffic. In its 2022 webspam report it said that, thanks to SpamBrain’s learning capability, it “detected 50 times more link spam sites compared to the previous link spam update.” Google published no figures on how many sites or queries saw ranking changes. Treat any traffic percentage attributed to this update as a third-party estimate.

What site owners should do#

Google’s spam policies define link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Its guidance for sites affected by a spam update:

• Review your links against the link spam examples in Google’s spam policies: paid links, excessive link exchanges, automated link building and links required by contract.
• Qualify paid or sponsored links with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored".
• Expect no recovery of lost link credit. Google says benefits from neutralized links cannot be regained, so improvement has to come from elsewhere.
• Report sites that engage in inorganic link building through Google’s spam report.

How to check whether it affected you#

In Search Console, compare clicks for the week before 5 December 2022 with the week starting 19 January 2023, one week after both December updates finished. For pages that lost positions, use the Links report to see which inbound links come from paid or exchanged placements. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists every confirmed update with its dates.

Related updates#

• The December 2022 helpful content update overlapped it and finished the same day.
• The October 2022 spam update was the spam update before it.