September 2026 Spam Update: A Backlink Audit for B2B SaaS Sites

After the September 2026 spam update, a B2B SaaS backlink audit should check three things: links you paid for without a rel="sponsored" tag, guest posts with exact-match anchors, and partner link swaps. Google finished the rollout on October 8, 2026. Most sites need cleanup and better links, not a disavow file.

Google's September 2026 spam update started on September 24 and ran for almost 14 days. That is long for a spam update. Plenty of SaaS teams watched their rankings wobble and started asking whether old link building came back to bite them.

This guide is for SaaS marketers and founders who manage their own link profile. It walks through how to tell whether the update touched your site, how to audit your backlinks in an afternoon and what to fix first. Cekpr covers backlinks, technical SEO and AI search for B2B software teams, and this is the audit we would run first.

What did the September 2026 spam update target?

Google described it as a routine spam update that applies globally and to all languages. The Google Search Status Dashboard incident logs the start on September 24 and completion on October 8, 2026. Google did not say which spam policies it emphasized. It also gave no share of affected queries.

That silence matters for your audit. A spam update can act on any policy, from scaled content to link schemes. You can't assume it was a link update, and you can't rule links out either.

The safest reading is to check every policy that touches your site. For most SaaS companies, links are the riskiest area. Years of agency outreach tend to leave a trail.

How do you know if the spam update affected your site?

Compare organic clicks for the two weeks before September 24 with the two weeks after October 8 in Search Console. A drop that starts inside the rollout window and holds after it ends points to the update. A drop that started earlier, or only hit a few pages, usually has another cause, such as a site change or seasonal demand.

Check the Manual actions report in Search Console as well. A spam update is algorithmic, so it sends no message. A manual action is different, because a human reviewer applied it and Google tells you about it.

Also look at which pages dropped. If losses cluster on pages that received the most outreach links, that's a strong hint. If losses cluster on thin programmatic pages, read up on scaled content abuse instead.

A step-by-step backlink audit for SaaS sites

The steps below take about an afternoon for a site with a few thousand referring domains. Run them in order, since each step shrinks the list for the next one.

Step two is the one people skip. It feels awkward to list your own past purchases. It is also the fastest way to find the links Google is most likely to discount.

Which backlinks break Google's link spam policy?

Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links mainly to manipulate search rankings. The policy names buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges and keyword-rich anchors in guest posts. It also names links widely distributed in footers or templates across sites.

The table below maps common SaaS link tactics to their risk level and the fix for each.

Integration directories deserve a note. A listing in a partner's app marketplace exists because users need it. Google's policy targets links made mainly for rankings, and a working integration page is not that.

Paid placements need disclosure, not just a rel tag

Google's guide to qualifying outbound links asks sites to mark paid links with rel="sponsored". The nofollow value is still accepted. Either one tells Google not to pass ranking credit through a link you paid for.

Search engines aren't the only audience. The Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides, codified at 16 CFR Part 255, treat payment or free products given to an endorser as a material connection. A sponsored review of your SaaS product needs a clear disclosure readers can see.

Review platforms add one more rule. The FTC's consumer review rule at 16 CFR Part 465 addresses buying positive or negative reviews. Gift-card campaigns that pay only for five-star reviews on software marketplaces are a legal problem as well as an SEO one.

How to ask publishers to fix or remove a backlink

A short, specific request gets the best response rate. Publishers receive a lot of link email, and a vague one goes straight to the archive. Name the page, the link and the exact change you want.

The list below covers what each request should include.

Keep the tone plain. Most publishers will add a rel attribute without argument, since it costs them nothing. Removal requests on paid posts sometimes get a fee quote back. Paying to remove a link you once paid to place is a poor deal, so ask for the attribute change instead.

Track every request in the same sheet as your audit. Record the date sent, the reply and the final state of the link. Re-check the pages a month later, because some publishers agree and then never make the edit.

When should a SaaS site use the disavow tool?

Use it only when you have a large number of spammy links and they caused, or will likely cause, a manual action. Google's disavow documentation says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust on its own. It also warns that incorrect use can hurt a site's performance.

A spam update is not a manual action. If your traffic dipped during the rollout and the Manual actions report is clean, a disavow file is unlikely to help. Removing or qualifying the paid links you control is the better use of time.

Third-party content hosted on your own domain is a separate risk. Google's August 2026 update to its site reputation policy changed how manual actions work for users in the European Economic Area starting August 30. If your blog hosts paid partner content that has little to do with your product, review it under that policy.

How to earn links that survive the next spam update

The links that hold up are the ones someone gave you because your page was useful. For B2B SaaS, three assets earn them reliably: original data from your own product, free tools and templates, and clear explanations of hard technical topics.

Original data works best because nobody else has it, and public data can earn links too. A report built from aggregated, anonymized usage across your customers gives journalists a number to cite. Our team at Cekpr sees this pattern more than any other in the SaaS link profiles we review.

Content quality is part of the same picture. A post full of unverified AI claims won't attract citations, so pair outreach with the review process in our guide to fact-checking AI-assisted content under Google's 2026 guidance.

Your post-update backlink checklist

The short answer is to audit what you paid for, fix what you control and stop buying links that pass ranking credit. A disavow file is a last resort, reserved for manual actions.

This week, export your links and tag every paid placement. Next week, send rel-change or removal requests for the highest-risk ones. Then put the time you saved into one original data asset that earns links on its merits.