Google has been waging war against low-quality and manipulative content to game the search rankings. The latest March 2024 core update against Spam is the recent escalation in the battle. Is your website ready to meet its stringent new quality standards?
Google is taking multiple measures aimed at improving its search results as millions of people turn to Search to find the best results. Primarily, this core update focuses on fighting in three core areas:
- Expired domain abuse
- Scaled content abuse
- Site reputation abuse
According to Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management at Google, “This update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.”
This update seems more complex than its usual core updates, and Google is primarily focused on improving its core rankings to show more helpful results by using many signals and approaches.
Google has said it has refined its system to understand unhelpful content with poor user experience and content that is solely created to leverage search engine rankings. It could also mean sites created solely to match certain search queries.
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Helpful Content Update Now Part of Core Updates
Google rolled out the helpful content update in September 2023, which was also a large update and impacted several sites. The content classifier system has been overhauled and has become a big part of the March 2024 core update. Google began working on this update with the 2022 helpful content update.
March 2024 Spam Updates
The latest update in March is known as the March 2024 spam update, and the spam policies update will complement the release of the March 2024 core update.
Google has announced key changes to improve the quality of search results and provide more helpful information. Here are the key focus areas:
Improved quality rankings: Google is making algorithmic changes to the core ranking system to ensure they provide the most helpful information on the web and reduce unoriginal content in search results.
New spam policies: Google has updated spam policies to keep low-quality content out of search results and prevent websites from using expired domains as resources, as well as addressing obituary spam.
Keeping More Spam out of Your Results
Google has relied on spam-fighting systems for decades to help prevent low-quality content from entering search results.
They have updated spam policies to address new and evolving abusive practices that may lead to low-quality content in Search. Here are the key areas they have focused on:
Scaled Content Abuse:
Google has implemented strict policies against automated technologies aimed at generating low-quality and unoriginal content with the intention of manipulating search rankings.
To address this problem, Google is strengthening its policy to focus on the underlying abusive behavior. This update strengthens the system to fight against producing content at scale primarily to boost search rankings, regardless of whether automation, human effort, or a combination is involved.
This revised policy will enable Google to take action against a broader range of low-value content created at scale, such as pages that appear to provide answers to popular searches but fail to deliver genuinely helpful information. The aim is to crack down on any attempt to game the search rankings by mass-producing superficial or redundant content lacking true substance or utility for users.
Expired Domain Abuse:
Expired domain abuse is the practice of buying expired domains and repurposing them to leverage their backlink profiles with the intention of boosting search rankings.
This may trick users into believing that the domain is part of a new or old site, but it may not be.
It is a direct signal for content creators not to purchase expired domains with the intention of repurposing them. Google can take action both via manual and algorithmic systems.
Site Reputation Abuse:
Sometimes, site owners may hold their thin or low-value content on third-party websites to manipulate rankings and take advantage of those websites.
Ranking high on third-party websites may mislead visitors who may have different expectations for the content.
The new policy clarifies that content produced by third parties primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner is considered Spam.
The policy change will be enforced on May 5th. Website owners are advised to remove any spammy third-party content before enforcement begins. The announcement was made on March 5th, giving website owners two months’ notice.
Conclusion:
Like any other core update, ranking fluctuations are expected across the web. It is better to wait until the full changes are rolled out before making final changes to the site. However, if your site is impacted and relying on low-quality content or spammy practices, now is the time to take serious strategic action to realign with Google’s quality guidelines.
It was a significant update focused on better rewarding helpful sites and further cracking down on spam/reversing tricks.
As the fallout continues over the coming weeks, one message is clear – Google’s tolerance for any whiff of search spam is plummeting towards zero.
