Abstract
- Core update goals. The March 2024 update aims to improve search results, reduce reliance on single signals, and reduce low-quality content by 40%.
- Spam update focus. New policies target abuse of scaled content, site reputation, and expired domains to combat low-quality content in search.
- Impact on SEO. Experts should monitor changes in rankings. Content improvements may be needed to recover from performance degradation and wait for the next update.
Google has released multiple new updates, including the March 2024 Core Update and multiple spam updates, coined the March 2024 Spam Update.
The purpose of these updates is to improve the quality of search results and reduce the visibility of content that appears to be created to attract clicks.
March 2024 Core Update
The March 2024 Core Update is the first core update of the year and is more complex than a typical core update with changes to multiple systems. With this update, Google no longer relies on a single signal or system to provide more useful search results.
Google began tweaking its ranking system in 2022 to cut down on unoriginal content that is useless in search. This algorithm change continues our efforts to provide search results with the most useful content on the web. Google officials said they expect this update (along with previous efforts) to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.
The search giant is using core research to better understand whether web pages are useless, have a poor user experience, or feel like they were made for search engines rather than humans. He said the ranking system is being improved. We believe this update will send more traffic to informative, high-quality sites.
The March 2024 Core Update may take up to a month to roll out. During this time, rankings may fluctuate more than normal core updates.
Google says there's nothing creators need to do right now as long as they're developing valuable content that's made for people. For those who aren't ranking well, Google offers a help page on writing useful, authentic, and human-centered content. This page includes questions creators can ask themselves:
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
- Does the content provide a substantive, complete, or comprehensive explanation of the topic?
- If my content uses other sources, can I avoid copying or rewriting those sources?
- Does your content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, including clear sources and background information about the author?
Previous core updates included:
Related Articles: What's New in Search Top SEO Strategies for 2024
March 2024 Spam Update
Google also introduced new and improved spam policies to filter low-quality content from search. The March 2024 Spam Update may take up to two weeks to deploy.
Search giants will continue to rely on spam detection systems such as AI-based spam prevention system SpamBrain.
In 2021, SpamBrain identified nearly six times more spam sites than in 2020. As a result, we've seen a 70% reduction in hacked spam and a 75% reduction in unsolicited spam on our hosting platform. (For comparison, Google's spam system detected 40 billion spam pages every day in 2020.) Google also detects spam through human reviews when necessary.
These new updates to Google's spam policies will help us better combat new and evolving fraudulent practices that cause unoriginal, low-quality content to appear in search.
Massive Content Abuse
Google strengthens its large content policies to focus on fraud related to content generated at scale, whether by automation, humans, or a combination of both, to boost search rankings It is planned.
An example of high-volume content that Google points out is pages that appear to have answers to popular searches, but fail to provide truly useful content.
Abuse of site reputation
Some high-quality websites publish low-quality content from third parties to take advantage of the hosting site's good reputation. However, Google now considers low-value third-party content created primarily for ranking purposes to be spam.
Google gave the example of a third party publishing payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website. The search giant says this content can confuse or mislead visitors who have pre-existing expectations about the content of a particular site.
Abuse of expired domains
In some cases, creators may purchase expired domains and reuse them to display low-quality, unoriginal content in search results, making it appear as though the content is part of an older website. .
According to Google, expired domains that are purchased and reused in this way are currently considered spam.
These updates are the first updates targeting spam this year and build on efforts from the October 2023 Spam update.
Related article: 5 SEO Strategies to Adopt in 2024
What can you find with a search?
All these updates will take up to a month to fully roll out. In the meantime, search engine optimization professionals will need to closely monitor rankings, which are likely to change.
Some pages that experience performance degradation may fully recover once the rollout is complete. However, recovery is not guaranteed and creators may need to improve their content. If improvements are made, performance may not return until the next core update is released.
