Google released its September 2026 spam update on September 24. The three earlier spam updates this year ended within days, but this one came with a rollout of up to two weeks. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz has tracked three waves of volatility, on September 25 to 27, on September 30, and from October 4 to 6, and he believes the final phase is underway. Google has not said how many queries it affected.
Meanwhile, the price of a link keeps rising. Growwer's marketplace data shows an average post cost €189.82 in 2025, up 8.6% on 2024. Yet half of its best-selling outlets charge under €60, and 47 of its 90 best sellers draw fewer than 1,000 organic visits a month. For a CMO, the real question is whether each link bought is worth its price once the dust settles.
Do you have 5 minutes ?
Google's September spam update is rolling out in waves over roughly two weeks with no stated target, while one marketplace's data shows link prices rising 8.6% and varying sharply with outlet traffic and authority. Both stories reward patience: measure results only after the dust settles, and pay for readers, not for numbers.
Market Trend: Link Prices Follow Traffic While Google Volatility Comes in Waves
Price follows Organic Traffic: €81.25 per post for outlets under 20,000 monthly visits, €697.26 above 200,000 (2025 averages, Spanish-language outlets). Among the 90 best sellers, the median price is €34 under DR 30 and €363 at DR 70 or higher.
The average price rose 8.6% to €189.82, yet the median among the 90 best-selling outlets is €57, and 47 of those 90 draw fewer than 1,000 monthly visits.
So what? Budget by traffic band, not by lowest price, and ask for each outlet's real Organic Traffic before buying, as Growwer itself advises. Hold off judging the ROI of links tested during the rollout, since Schwartz expects impacts on different days.
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FIELD DATA
Growwer shared purchase data from its own marketplace, including budget examples by type of business. It describes one seller's catalog, not the whole market, and it shows what links cost rather than what they return.
Average price: €189.82 per post in 2025, versus €174.86 in 2024
Typical buyer: €2,212 a year for 11.6 posts
Best sellers: median €57, usual range €26 to €223
SaaS or B2B (Growwer estimate): €4,000 to €6,000 a year, with 2 to 3 posts a month on outlets of 20,000 to 75,000 visits
Ecommerce (estimate): €4,000 to €5,000 a year
Highly competitive industries (estimate): €11,000 to €17,000 a year
Local business (estimate): €1,000 to €2,000 a year
Field read: Growwer sells these placements, its figures cover 2025 purchases, and the traffic bands apply to Spanish-language outlets. Its own caveat is that a link from a site with no readers passes little authority and no visits.
RISK RADAR
Signal: Google calls it a normal spam update, global and in all languages, with a rollout of up to two weeks.
Pace: Google's John Mueller confirmed it will likely take longer than some previous ones.
Waves: Schwartz sees volatility on September 25 to 27, September 30 and October 4 to 6, and expects multiple cycles. His reading of tracking tools, not a Google statement.
Gray zone: Google would not say what share of queries were affected, and recovery can take many months.
Unconfirmed: the same article says the update does not target link spam, but the Google statements it quotes do not say so.
Decision-maker action: wait for Google's completion notice, which it says it will post on its ranking release history page, before reading any traffic change against a link purchase.
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Keep crawling, keep linking. See you next week !
