Is Google Targeting Service Area Pages with the August 2026 Spam Update?

[JoyHawkins]

Reposting this thread we got on our subreddit.

This user is saying they are seeing service area pages (pages targeting a specific city with the goal to rank organically in that city) getting hit by the August 2026 Spam Update. Anyone here seeing this? Examples?

 

[Tony Wang]

Several pages I have are still ranking well. Some others I haven't been tracking as closely, so it's hard to say.

 

[LightOfHeaven]

Around June, most of my location pages fell out of the index. Around August 16th, I started actively deleting, redirecting pages worth saving, and overall dropping the idea that location pages help businesses rank.

Instead, I'm now trying to approach my location pages by structuring them like a compass and going no further than 1 town over.

A location page targeting customers north, south, east, and west of our business location.

But to be honest, it's starting to look like the end for location pages.

Earlier this week, I noticed Google started pairing websites with the business's physical location!

 

[brettmandoes]

Any updates to this question? I've heard a lot of rumblings that location pages are being targeted over the past year, but I've only seen anecdotal data so far.