What the policy says
Google's spam policies page, last updated August 28, 2026, defines it in one sentence:
"Scaled content abuse is when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users."
Notice what is not in that sentence. It does not say "AI". It does not give a page limit. The test is purpose and value, not volume or method.
When Google launched the policy on March 5, 2024, it said the rule applies "whether automation or humans are involved." It replaced an older rule about "automatically-generated content", because, in Google's words, it "isn't always clear whether low quality content was created purely through automation."
Google's five examples
The policy lists these as scaled content abuse:
| Google's example | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Using generative AI or similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users | 2,000 "best plumber in {town}" pages with no plumbers, prices or reviews |
| Scraping feeds, search results or other content to generate many pages, including by synonymizing, translating or other obfuscation | Copying other sites' listings and rewording them |
| Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding value | Each page is three paragraphs from three other sites |
| Creating multiple sites to hide the scaled nature of the content | The same templated pages spread across 10 domains |
| Creating many pages that make little or no sense to a reader but contain search keywords | "{App A} {App B} integration" pages for apps that do not connect |
What it does not ban
Building many pages is not the problem. Zapier has pair pages for apps across its 9,000+ app catalog. Numbeo has cost-of-living pages for 12,883 cities. Wise has a page for each currency pair. These pages are useful because each one shows data the searcher came for: real triggers, real prices, a live rate.
We checked 50 sites like these on October 14, 2026. You can see all of them in our 50 programmatic SEO examples.
What has happened since 2024
| Date (US Pacific) | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 5, 2024 | Policy launched with the March 2024 spam update and core update | Search Central blog |
| Apr 26, 2024 | Google reports "45% less low-quality, unoriginal content" in results, versus the 40% it expected | Google blog |
| Mar 24-25, 2026 | March 2026 spam update, under 20 hours, "applies globally and to all languages" | Dashboard |
| Jun 24, Aug 18, Sep 24, 2026 | June, August and September 2026 spam updates (September finished Oct 8) | Dashboard history |
Google did not say which policies the 2026 spam updates targeted, and it did not name sites. Anyone listing "sites hit for scaled content abuse in March 2026" is guessing.
How it is enforced
Two ways, per Google's spam policies page. Automated systems can rank pages lower or drop them, which usually shows up after a spam update. A person at Google can apply a manual action, which you will see in Search Console under Security & Manual Actions, and you can then ask for a review after you fix it.
A five-question self-test
Ask these about one finished page from your template:
- If I hide the city, app or product name, is the page still different from its siblings?
- Does it show at least one fact that appears on no other page of my site?
- Is that fact mine, licensed, or made by my users, not copied from another site?
- Would I publish this page if search engines did not exist?
- Did a person read 20 random pages before launch?
Any "no" means fix the template before you publish more rows. The full 17-point checklist is in the PDF.
What to do if traffic fell after a spam update
- Check Search Console for a manual action first. If there is one, the notice says which policy.
- Compare page sets: in Performance, filter by URL folder and compare the 4 weeks before and after the update date.
- Find thin rows: pages with empty data, near-identical text, or no impressions at all. Improve them, merge them, or set them to noindex.
- Keep the pages that earned clicks. Do not delete everything in a panic.
If you build page sets from your own data, SEOmatic builds them on one of your own pages, and each batch waits for your approval.
How to use this with an AI assistant
Connect SEOmatic at https://seomatic.ai/mcp and ask: "Use site_audit on mysite.com to find near-empty and duplicate pages in my page sets, then gsc_performance folder_rollup to show which folders earn clicks. Tell me which templated pages look thin." It needs a free sign-in and only reads your data.