The just concluded Google March 2024 Core Update has left the SEO professionals in the lurk. In fact, the impact is yet to be understood in its true essence, but it calls for a thorough evolution of their strategies by SEO professionals. We thought of analyzing the impact and finding how the update transforms Google ranking signals and impacts SEO.
Google March 2024 Core Update primarily focuses on removing the low-quality content, while rewarding the helpful content. It also looks to tackle the manipulative tactics being used by SEO professionals in achieving desired search rankings.
Understanding Google March 2024 Core Update
As I could find based on what happened to my own sites, my straightforward opinion has been that Google has been targeting improving the quality of search and combating spam effectively. Google has gone on record stating that the update is more extensive than any other update in the recent past.
Google has categorically stated in its blog that “The March 2024 core update is a more complex update than our usual core updates, involving changes to multiple core systems. It also marks an evolution in how we identify the helpfulness of content.”
Let us analyze the different aspects of the March 2024 Core Update and find how you can recover your sites if affected by this update.
Improved Quality of Ranking
There have been a lot of complaints from users in recent times about the deteriorating quality of search rankings on Google Search. That apart, there has been a huge growth of AI-generated content that has made the quality of SERPs bad to worse. That was exactly, why I feel Google focussed on improving the quality of search with the core update.
The focus of Google has been on increasing “most helpful information on the web and reducing unoriginal content in search results,” as stated by Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product for Search at Google.
Google has been attempting to reduce unhelpful content since 2022 and September 2023 Helpful Content Update was one of the huge ones in this context. With the March 2024 Core Update, the HCU will perhaps be made an integral part of the core or broad updates, instead of individual HCU in the future.
Google has reiterated this through its blog stating “As of April 19, we’ve completed the rollout of these changes. You’ll now see 45% less low-quality, unoriginal content in search results versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.”
New Spam Policies
Another serious concern that Google is targeting with the 2024 March Core Update is to beat the spam from search results. As I could see from my own experience, Google is adjusting its spam policies to help remove the lowest quality content from its search results.
Google has gone on record stating that “We’ll take action on more types of these manipulative behaviors starting today. While our ranking systems keep many types of low-quality content from ranking highly on Search, these updates allow us to take more targeted action under our spam policies.”
The spam policies include several types of violations and taking action on them. For the March 2024 Core Update, Google has focused on Scaled Content Abuse, Site reputation Abuse, and Expired Domain abuse.
Scaled Content Abuse
Scaled content abuse has more to do with the way publishers have been using automation to update content on their sites. Most of these contents tend to be unoriginal and created just to manipulate the search rankings.
In fact, Google will not only target automated content generation in this context. It has updated the algorithms to find and penalize the scaled content – whether it is created through AI, Humans, or a mix of both techniques.
Google states “ “This will allow us to take action on more types of content with little to no value created at scale, like pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but fail to deliver helpful content.”
Although Google didn’t say that they will target AI-generated content, as per our analysis, most of the sites with pure AI content without editing and human touch, are down to 0 traffic. So, this is an indication to all that whether you are using AI to generate your content, make sure to do a good amount of editing to add the personal touch and make that unique. Moreover, hiring a professional writer would be a better option if you don’t have time.
Site Reputation Abuse
This is one of the most common abuses that we tend to find in most of the high-end and reputed publications. I am sure that you might have come across authority websites posting third-party and low-value content on Loans or even betting syndicates. This is done to rank the content taking advantage of the high reputation that the site carries. And, for this, the high authority sites get paid well.
Imagine a pet-related post on a site that provides health-related content, or even a site with an education niche posting content on jewelry. These would invariably treated as site reputation abuse. Users on these sites have specific expectations about the content, and the low-quality third-party content is bound to mislead them.
Google has served a two-month ultimatum to the sites to comply with the site reputation policy.
Expired Domain Abuse
Expired domain abuse involves buying expired domains and repurposing them to manipulate search engine rankings. It has become a typical SEO technique where publishers buy an expired domain of a high reputation and post low-quality content on it.
Users coming to the site believe that the content is part of the old trusted site. Google is also tackling this technique to improve the quality of search engine rankings more effectively and efficiently.
My Own Observations of the Google March 2024 Core Update
Being one of the publishers who has a couple of sites affected by the March Core Update, I took to analyze the update more deeply to understand the key implications. I have seen almost no impact on the business websites for whom we are performing SEO. Most of the affects were on publishing websites and blogs.
To begin with, analyzing a core update is a huge task. More so with the March 2024 core update. However, I could find that lower EEAT is what Google is targeting more than anything else. One thing I noticed – with respect to the sites that were deindexed – is that they were AI-generated, had a few errors, and came with completely outdated information. Even the sites that are human-written but have repetitive content on the same thing to manipulate search rankings had also been deindexed.
Some fair sites have also been penalized as collateral Damage, but with good quality, they can easily be recovered.
So, if you have been hit by the March Core Update, your focus should primarily be on improving the quality of your content. Your content needs to be informative, accurate, and engaging. It should also have a unique perspective when it comes to sharing the right kind of information with your readers.
After the update, we have been witnessing the search results from reputed sources. However, this may not be true in every case. As per our experience with Google in the past, the tech giant has never been so intelligent in implementing what they actually say. I would just hope that the improvements that Google has been talking about are actually implemented in full spirit.
What I have been seeing is not that trustworthy though. While the mission that Google has set out on is effective and perfect, there are still a huge number of irrelevant results crowding the SERPs. More than that, several sites that genuinely followed what Google has stipulated about helpful content and EEAT seem to have been hit very adversely.
Before we take your leave…
Well, so? What is the way out? If the March 2024 Core Update hits you, is there any way to get out of it? Is there any option to recover your site?
The key to getting a good ranking potential on Google Search results is to provide meaningful, informative, and valuable content. The key is to understand and address your user intent. This can be the only way to improve your search engine rankings. But, finding how to do it is a huge question.
Opting for the best ethical SEO standards in achieving this can be quite helpful in enhancing your search rankings. We at Smart Techies make sure to meet your SEO requirements and goals with an insightful knowledge of our team. We do understand that understanding a Google update may not be that easy, but we promise to deliver the best when it comes to enhancing your search engine rankings more effectively.
If SEO is something that you don’t have time to do, you should hire a professional agency to help boost your website’s organic traffic for better sales.