So September is here already? And that means it’s time to take a look at what’s been happening in the world of search over the past month.
I’ll hit the big stories from August, explain what they mean for your site, and what we’re doing about them at SEO Sherpa.
Danny Sullivan Steps Down
First, a quick industry headline. Danny Sullivan, Google’s public Search Liaison for the past seven-plus years, stepped away from that role on August 1.
He’s moved into an internal director role on the Search team. Practically speaking, you’ll see more updates come via official Search Central channels rather than a single high-profile spokesperson.
Google’s August Spam Update
On August 26, Google began rolling out the August 2025 Spam Update.
Google has called this a normal spam update. It’s global, all languages, and the rollout will take a few weeks. Early chatter shows impact starting within 24 hours of launch.
What does it target?
In short, sites that violate Google’s spam policies.
This isn’t a link-spam or ‘site reputation abuse’-specific update. It’s the routine tightening of systems that catch manipulative patterns like mass-produced pages, doorway tactics, spun content, and other policy-breaking behaviors. If you’re playing by the rules, you are not the target.
What we’re doing at SEO Sherpa:
- Monitoring your performance and Search Console messages daily during the rollout.
- Double-checking technical health, crawlability, and indexation so legitimate pages stay discoverable.
- Reviewing any pages that might be thin, duplicative, or orphaned, and tightening internal linking where needed.
- Keeping your content safely inside Google’s guidelines, with clear expertise and source transparency.
The bottom line:
If you’re a Sherpa client following our content standards, you should be fine. If we see volatility, we’ll investigate, verify it’s update-related, and make targeted fixes. No panic, no guesswork, just methodical QA
Google’s Crawl-rate Glitch. What Happened, and Why it’s OK
Mid-August, many sites saw crawl stats dip in Search Console.
That was on Google’s side, not yours. Google acknowledged reduced or fluctuating crawling starting around August 8 and has since deployed a fix. Your crawling should normalize without you changing anything.
What did it mean? Crawling is just Google fetching pages. A brief crawl dip can delay recrawls and fresh indexing, but it is not a ranking penalty. Once Googlebot activity returned to normal, pages continued to be discovered and refreshed as usual.
What we did and recommend:
- We monitored Crawl Stats, Index Coverage, and server logs to confirm healthy 200 responses.
- We kept sitemaps up to date and avoided unnecessary site changes.
- If needed, we nudged recrawls on priority pages. All of this keeps your site stable while Google resolves platform-side issues.
AI Mode Goes Worldwide
Google’s AI experiences continue to expand globally.
The trend line is clear: more AI-generated answers and more on-page links inside those experiences. We’re optimizing content so your brand appears as a cited source where it makes sense.
Grok Chats Get Indexed
Elon Musk’s Grok made waves when hundreds of thousands of shared chats were indexed and surfaced in search. Privacy and AI design will keep making headlines, so we’re factoring that into content governance and brand-safety guidance.
Age Verification in Google Search
Google added age-gating flows for certain categories. If you’re in a regulated space, expect occasional friction for users, but we’ll continue to design journeys that keep qualified visitors moving.
AI Mode Gets More Links
Google says it wants AI results to surface more source links, including carousels and smarter inline linking. Translation: there are new routes to win visibility even when AI takes center stage, and we’re building for that.
In Closing
So that’s August. One algorithm update to keep spammers at bay, one crawler hiccup that’s already fixed, and an AI-heavy future that still rewards high-quality, technically sound content.
We’ve got the dashboards, the playbooks, and the team watching all of it. If you want more information, check our blog for full details.
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