# December 2022 link spam update releasing for Google Search

Wednesday, December 14, 2022


Today, we're leveraging the power of SpamBrain to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on
search results.

## Fighting link spam with SpamBrain


SpamBrain is our
[AI-based spam-prevention system](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/04/webspam-report-2021#spambrain:-our-most-effective-solution-against-spam).
Besides using it to detect spam directly, it can now detect both sites buying links, and sites
used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.

## What this update means for your site


Our launch today, which we refer to as the **December 2022 link spam update**, will
take about two weeks to fully roll out. Ranking may change as spammy links are neutralized and any
credit passed by these unnatural links are lost. This launch will affect all languages.


As we have always emphasized, links obtained primarily for artificial manipulation of Search
rankings are [link spam](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#link-spam). Our
algorithms and manual actions aim to nullify these unnatural links at scale, and we will continue
to improve our coverage. If you come across sites that engage in inorganic link building, please
[report them to us](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/report-spam). If you have specific
feedback in regards to this update, feel free to post in our
[help community](https://goo.gle/sc-forum).


Posted by [Duy Nguyen](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/authors/duy-nguyen), Ildar Akhmedyanov, Jacob N Scott and [Karthikgeyan Elangovan](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/authors/karthikgeyan-elangovan)