Google March 2024 Core Update: Prioritizing Helpful And Original Content

Google has rolled out its first core update of 2024 to reduce low-quality and spammy content. 

On March 5, Google announced its March 2024 core update to reduce spammy and low-quality content on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Google has shared 3 new spam policies to limit practices that negatively impact search results. According to Google, the core update for March 2024 is more complex than its previous core updates. This update will primarily revolve around identifying the helpfulness of the content. 

Google March Core Update: What is it all about?

The core update for March 2024 is the efforts of Google to expand the low-quality downranking initiative that it launched in 2022. Google started refining its ranking algorithms in 2022 to decrease and maintain irrelevant and unoriginal content on searches. 

Google has updated some of its key ranking mechanisms to better identify whether webpages are useless, offer a poor user experience, or feel like they were made for search engines instead of humans. Websites that are created to respond to very specific search queries will fall into this category.

Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management at Google, wrote that these collective efforts will reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.

Google Cracks Down on Spammy Content 

Google’s new spam policies are designed to address practices that negatively impact search results. It has announced three new spam policies against practices that have grown in popularity.

Expired domain abuse

• Expired domain abuses is the practice of purchasing an expired domain name and using it primarily to host content that offers little to no value to visitors. 
• For example, someone may purchase a domain name that was previously a medical website. They can then use it to publish poor content about casinos to rank well in search results because of the domain’s previous reputation.
• It is a common practice to buy expired domains.  It’s a tactic to use a domain’s previous reputation to rank highly in searches with low-value content. 
• As per Google, using an existing domain is acceptable as long as user experience is the priority.

Scaled content abuse

• Scaled content abuse is creating content in massive quantities to manipulate search rankings instead of informing users.
• The purpose of this new policy is to ensure that action is taken against low-quality content, whether it is human-written, AI-generated, or a combination of both.
• As per Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content published on Feb 8, 2023, it does not prohibit AI-generated content. However, it is against the practice of mass-producing content to manipulate search rankings. 
• As long as the AI-generated content is focused on “people first,” it is good to go. 

Site reputation abuse

• Site reputation abuse is a practice when third-party websites publish low-quality content on reputed websites to benefit from their strong reputation.  
• For example, a third-party website may post payday loan reviews on a reputable education website to benefit from the site’s ranking. 
• Google says it will spam any extremely low-value third-party content created for search engine rankings without the direct supervision of a website owner. 
• Google is announcing this policy two months before it becomes effective on May 5 to give site owners time to make any necessary adjustments

Will it affect the rankings?

Rankings will probably fluctuate as several systems become fully updated and provide feedback to one another. When the update is complete, Google will post it on its Google Search Status Dashboard. Because of the complexity of this upgrade, it can take a month to roll it out.

As long as content creators continue to produce engaging content intended for audiences, there is nothing new or unique they need to do for this upgrade. Google strongly advices reading its helpful, dependable, people-first content advice page for individuals who might not be ranking as well.

This update is only complementary to the last Google update, which valued quality over quantity. As long as you produce quality content that is intended for the users rather than the search engine, you have nothing to worry about. 

Looking ahead: Google’s commitment to excellence

Google continues to refine and update its search algorithms and policies to deliver accurate, relevant and authoritative content to its users. The rollout of the new spam policies emphasizes Google’s unwavering commitment to curb spammy practices and improve the quality of search results.