Google purges 12,000+ spammy NotebookLM pages from Search after parasite SEO abuse
gaganghotra_ · x · 2026-09-23
Black-hat SEOs were exploiting Google's publicly shareable Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM) pages as a parasite SEO tactic, flooding Google Search with spam pages for sex toys, porn, peptides, and coupon codes — over 12,000 such pages were being indexed.
First spotted by Charles Floate and amplified by Gagan Ghotra and Glenn Gabe, the spam flooded shared notebook directories in the SERPs. Google has now dropped all the notebook pages from its index, as expected. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable notes Google could have acted much sooner, but "better late than never."
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