August 2025 SEO Update: Global Spam Refresh, AI Expansion, and New Shopping API
The SEO landscape continues to evolve rapidly with significant updates and feature launches that impact marketers, developers, and ecommerce professionals worldwide. Here’s a comprehensive overview of the most critical developments as of August 2025.
Major Global Spam Update Begins Rollout
Google announced the initiation of its August 2025 spam update on August 26, signaling ongoing efforts to enhance search quality across all languages and regions. The update, now in progress, will likely roll out over the coming weeks, with full implementation expected to improve the effectiveness of spam filtering and ranking signals globally.
For ongoing status and updates, consult the Google Search Status Dashboard
This initiative aims to combat malicious and low-quality content, ensuring users access more relevant and trustworthy results. SEO practitioners should monitor their rankings and analyze the impact of this rollout over the next several weeks.
Expanded AI Capabilities Now Available in 180 Countries
Google has significantly broadened access to its AI Mode, now available in 180 countries and territories worldwide. While major EU markets such as Spain, Germany, Italy, and France are still temporarily excluded—likely due to regional regulatory hurdles—the expansion marks a major step toward democratizing AI-driven search enhancements.
Key Features of AI Mode include:
- Advanced task handling: Users in the U.S. with an AI Ultra subscription can now request services like restaurant reservations, specifying details such as date, time, cuisine, and party size. Further expansions are anticipated to cover local service scheduling and event ticketing.
- Personalized responses: AI Mode can now tailor answers based on previous interactions, enhancing contextual relevance for users opting into the feature via Search Labs.
- Session sharing: Users can share ongoing AI conversations through a link-sharing function, allowing others to continue the discussion seamlessly.
As Google continues to refine these capabilities, expectations are high for increased integration of AI into everyday searches, offering more personalized and efficient user experiences.
Sources: Google Search Help, The Keyword
Investigating the Hidden Reliance on Google Search Data
A recent investigation uncovered that OpenAI’s ChatGPT relies heavily on data scraped from Google Search via a third-party service called SerpApi to deliver real-time responses, particularly
