BRD Media Says Dental, Medical Search Rankings Shifted in Google Spam Update

BRD Media tracked 363 search terms across a dentist, a men’s health clinic and its own marketing site around Google’s September 2026 spam update and found sharp ranking gains on service-specific queries. The review points to what changed during the rollout and why tightly matched pages may have benefited.

Why it matters: - Google’s September 2026 spam update moved search visibility across dental, medical and legal marketing terms, with practical implications for how local service businesses structure pages. - The review suggests service-specific answers, clear business signals and cleaner site structure may help pages rise when Google re-evaluates spam signals.

What happened: - Google began the spam update on September 24 and said it was complete on October 8. - BRD Media compared Semrush Position Tracking results from September 23 with October 12 for 363 search terms across three websites. - The sample included My Bloomingdale Dentist in Bloomingdale, Illinois, a Chicago men’s health clinic and the BRD Media site. - My Bloomingdale Dentist improved from position 32 to 8 for “family dentist bloomingdale il.” - My Bloomingdale Dentist rose from 16 to 3 for “dental implants bloomingdale il.” - My Bloomingdale Dentist moved from 4 to 1 for “implant supported dentures bloomingdale.” - The Chicago men’s health clinic climbed from 35 to 1 for “acupuncture for men chicago.” - The Chicago men’s health clinic improved from 23 to 7 for “chiropractic care for men chicago.” - The BRD Media site gained on marketing terms used by practices and firms, including “dental SEO,” “dental SEO services,” “law firm marketing chicago,” “Chicago law firm marketing agency” and “attorney marketing chicago.”

The details: - “Dental SEO,” estimated at about 6,600 monthly U.S. searches, moved from outside the top 100 to position 6. - “Dental SEO services,” estimated at about 2,900 monthly U.S. searches, moved from outside the top 100 to 13. - “Law firm marketing chicago,” estimated at about 390 monthly searches, moved from 37 to 10. - “Chicago law firm marketing agency” moved from 30 to 9. - “Attorney marketing chicago” moved from 10 to 8. - Three med spa marketing articles published on October 8 ranked by October 12 for the exact questions they addressed. - Those articles ranked first for “med spa consult show rate,” second for “is your med spa pixel sending phi” and fourth for “why a med spa loses the map pack.” - In the weeks before the update, BRD Media filed disavow files for low-quality backlinks pointing to its site. - BRD Media added organization and founder markup that linked the business to its public profiles. - BRD Media grouped short articles around each service page and refreshed older pages on September 15. - Earlier press releases also generated news coverage with links back to the site. - The review says those actions came before the ranking changes, but it does not isolate which action drove which move.

Between the lines: - The strongest gains came on queries that map closely to a single service page and a single user need. - That pattern fits Google’s spam cleanup logic better than broad, generic content that tries to cover too much at once. - The results also suggest technical trust signals and clearer entity markup may help search engines understand who is behind a site. - The review is limited to three websites, so it shows a directional snapshot, not a market-wide result.

What’s next: - BRD Media says the most reliable approach after a spam update is to make the business identity obvious, answer real patient and client questions, and connect each answer to one service page. - Future ranking movement may show whether the October gains hold as Google’s systems settle after the rollout.

The bottom line: - In this review, pages that matched one question to one service tended to outperform broader pages during Google’s spam update.