March 2024 Google Update
Google started 2024 with a core update and new spam policies. The update includes improved search quality and spam policy changes. In this update, Google continues the Fall 2023 update.
Webpromo editors turned to SEO Team Lead — Ivan Nagorny for detailed explanations. Ivan explained what the innovations of the search system mean and which websites they primarily affect.
The likely reasons for the search engine’s stricter policies were the large amount of content that is generated with the help of AI. In the new ranking algorithms, Google seeks to distinguish useful information from spam, that is, generated by artificial intelligence.
March 2024 Core update: strengthening the influence of behavioral factors
Update period: March 5 – April 19
Among the ranking factors, behavioral factors will gain even more weight, that is, the experience of user interaction with the web resource. Google’s desire to strengthen the role of user experience is also confirmed by the new INP metric in Core Web Vitals, which was finally implemented in March 2024.
Perhaps “negative” behavioral factors will have a greater influence: for example, a high rate of rejections will lead to a decrease in the ranking of the website.
Read also: Webpromo — Premier partner of Google 2024
March 2024 Spam update: Google’s new spam rules
Update period: March 5-20
The updated spam policy contains three additional points that webmasters and SEOs should pay attention to.
Using an expired domain for a different purpose
In some areas, it is common practice to purchase a trust domain that was previously registered but accidentally or intentionally not renewed. It can then be repurchased by a third party and used at its own discretion. Such domains are called Expired Domain or drop.
In the future, such a site can be repurposed for other business needs, for example:
Shift the link mass to your main domain; Join the PBN network (this is a network of auxiliary websites that are created to promote the main domain). Create a new site — a product or an affiliate (a site that duplicates the content of the main website and is promoted by similar requests. It is developed to fill the search results with sites of the same network).
Previously, such strategies were considered effective, but they will not work in the future.
If you have a drop, you need to choose its theme carefully. Otherwise, Google may apply sanctions.
Creating content in spam volumes
Now Google will also apply sanctions for the large-scale creation of a large number of similar pages in order to artificially increase the weight of the website. This update is mainly about dors.
Doorways are sites that do not benefit visitors. Their goal is to redirect traffic to another Internet resource.
With the advent of AI, webmasters have the ability to quickly add rewritten content, which has led to an increase in the number of sites created only to receive and redistribute traffic.
The search engine does not approve this method of promotion. In the future, Google will analyze such projects more carefully and de-index the site in case of detection.
Manipulation with the authority of the resource
How can Google’s 2024 March update affect a site’s ranking?
In conclusion, Ivan Nagornyi analyzed possible changes in website traffic using the web-promo.ua domain as an example. Today, the web-promo.ua domain has approximately 100,000 organic traffic. Let’s consider the impact of both updates in turn.
Kernel update. The majority of site traffic by percentage is blog pages. Informational web pages usually have the most attractive behavioral factors. Previous user interest and a large amount of content increase the time spent on the page. This is a positive behavioral factor. In this case, you can additionally improve behavioral factors with the help of perlinking (links to other pages of the site that are potentially of interest to readers). Spam Policy Update. Drops and large-scale content increases will not be affected, because these methods are not used to promote the domain. There are also no third party enhancement posts on other topics to be used as an affiliate.
The most likely outcome is that the update for this domain will be either neutral or even positive by increasing the weight of the behavioral factors.
Impact of the update after it completes
Google representatives reported that 45% less non-original content is now displayed in search results.
Google has also warned that this Update is sure to cause big fluctuations in the ranking. Indeed, SEO specialists have noticed spikes in SERP volatility and significant changes in the positions of some websites.
Image from searchengineland.com
Read also: Webpromo agency entered the Forbes Next250 list
June 2024 Spam Update
Update period: June 20-27
On June 20, 2024, another anti-spam update started.
Importantly! The June Spam update is not part of the Site Reputation Algorithmic Update.
The June Spam Update continues Google’s ongoing fight against spam. The update is aimed at improving the search engine’s spam detection capabilities. This may cause slight fluctuations in the rating.
Experts note that a website with a lot of AI-generated content is likely to see a decline in search rankings. And vice versa – websites that follow all the recommendations of the search engine can get higher positions in the SERP.
August 2024 Core Update
Update period: August 15 –
With this update, Google continues to improve its search results by showing more content that people can find useful.
The August update takes into account feedback that Google has received from website owners over the past few months. The changes are aimed at improving the ranking of small sites that create interesting and original content that meets user searches. In particular, this applies to web resources that were affected during previous updates and now have a chance to recover.
As part of the update, Google also updated the help page about the changes that happen during updates.
