The Google Core Update March 2024: Key Takeaways and Tips

Last week Google rolled out its first major Core Update and boy, is it a doozy! The main aim of this update is to reduce spammy and unhelpful content by a whopping 40%. And SEO experts and webmasters have been clamoring about the results these last couple of days. Many sites took an absolute nosedive in organic traffic or even got a manual strike. While others went through relatively unscathed. 

What does this Core update entail?

Google wants to ensure that actual helpful content is on the top of the search results and unhelpful content is reduced by 40%.  It does this by tackling 4 important pillars in this update:

• Priority is given to focusing on Quality Ranking and Helpful Content
• Scaled Content Abuse
• Expired Domain Abuse
• Site Reputation Abuse

This Google update began in early March 2024 and will be completed by May 5th. I will outline exactly what they mean for each of these 4 components. And in addition, how you can see if your website is affected and what you can do about it.

For more information, read Google’s FAQ on the March update

Priority is given to focusing on Quality Ranking and Helpful Content

The main part of the update is the implementation of Google’s Helpful Content System into its core ranking system. Meaning that scanning content if it’s helpful or not is now automatically a part of the overall Quality Ranking that Google employs.

Earlier updates in which Helpful Content was the focus were announced by Google. Like the update last autumn (november 2023), where a lot of niche sites saw a downturn in traffic.

Checking whether content is valuable (or helpful) is now a regular part of this and upcoming Core Updates. And therefore will not be announced in the future.

All with the goal of ensuring that the content at the top of search results is also of high value. And content of low or even spammy quality is found as low as possible in the search results. Or even not at all.

As mentioned, Google’s ambition with the current update is to reduce low-quality content by 40%.

Scaled Content Abuse

The 2nd part of the update, which is likely to start this week, is to counter Scaled Content Abuse. It’s an update of Google’s trusty old algorithm that was targeting automatically generated spammy content.

The goal here is to make short work of content that is turned out in massive amounts, either AI generated or written by humans. Content that is more focused on hitting the right keywords than offering actual value in order to game the Search Results. 

And we have seen tons and tons of AI generated content that on face value answer the online query, but actually is of low value. This update seems to focus mostly on spammy AI content, even though Google stated last year it doesn’t have a problem with AI. Well, at least when it’s good content.

Google on Scaled Content Abuse:

Our new policy is meant to help people focus more clearly on the idea that producing content at scale is abusive if done for the purpose of manipulating search rankings and that this applies whether automation or humans are involved.

So in short: yes, you can still publish AI generated content, provided it is of good quality and offers value and help to your target audience.

Expired Domain Abuse

This is where an expired or old domain is bought and used mainly to game the search results by hosting content and backlinks of low quality, little value and even dangerous spam.

Now, buying and using an expired domain can be an honest and valid method to get a quick SEO boost. For instance, when you own a plumbing business and get the opportunity of buying the website of a competitor who’s retired.

But many crafty marketers have used this method to basically cheat. One fellow SEO-expert gave me acouple of examples:

• Affiliate content and links on a website that was used by a local government.
• Commercial medical products on a website run by a former charity
• Links to a casino on the website of a former middle school

Google is specifically targeting these type of sites

Site Reputation Abuse

And lastly, Site Reputation Abuse. This is where an established site with a high Google Ranking hosts articles and content published by a third party, but of a much lower quality and value. Again, in order to get a backlink and game the search results for the actual website of that third party.

Now, Google doesn’t see content published by third parties as spam on principle, you can still offer this opportunity to fellow marketers. Provided that this content is of the same quality or caliber as you offer yourself.

Google on Site Reputation Abuse: 

Our new policy doesn’t consider all third-party content to be a violation, only that which is hosted without close oversight and which is intended to manipulate Search rankings.

This is something on which I can get behind myself. On this blog I get offers for a guest post every now and then. And I try to give each request an honest look. But I also want content that is of good quality and at least has something to do with the topic of AI or Online Marketing. 

Many of the requests I get in my inbox have nothing whatsoever to do with my main topic. One example  was a guy wanting to write a guest post about: dog grooming.

How do you know you got hit by Google’s March Update?

Ok, now we know what Google wants. But priority number 1 is to check if this affects your website.

First step is to log into your Google Search Account, click on  Performance in the left hand corner and check if the number of Impressions has gone done. (Impressions is the number of times your website came up in the Search Results for a certain keyword).

Next to that you want to check the Average Position (this is the average position of your various webpages on the SERP). If this number is increasing, you’re website may be in trouble, because this means more and more of your content is ranked lower and lower in the Search Results.

Third step is checking for a manual strike. A manual strike is where an actual human, a Google employee has taken a look at your website and decided to give it a penalty.

You can check for a manual strike by going on the left hand site in your Search Console and clicking on Security & Manual Actions

And of course don’t forget to check Google Analytics, to see if the actual organic traffic is down.

Now, these are probably pretty rare. Yes, a couple of Youtube guru’s have been hit, mostly because they were shouting from the roof about how to game Google’s results with churning out tons of AI generated content of low quality.

And even before the Google March Update there was one idiot who posted on X (Twitter) how he used AI to copy paste the whole website of a competitor including every individual piece of content. And got served with a Manual Strike

Finally of course don’t forget to check Google Analytics, to see if the actual organic traffic is down.

What can you do if your traffic is down due to this Google Update?

First, wait and see. At the moment of writing this the update still is going on. Google’s algorithms are still at work and will also straighten these things out. So a dip in organic traffic may very well be temporary for a while. Especially if the quality of your website and your content is solid.

Although I must also admit that some excellent websites are affected every time such an update is launched.

Second, conduct a thorough SEO audit to check your content and backlinks to see if a certain quality is up for improvement. Do you just focus on certain Keyword Phrases? Or is your content actually answering the question your target audience is looking for? 

In other words: do you offer value in your content?

Also put your content next to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines and check for compliance. Many content creators, bloggers and other webmaster tend to forget this.

Next to that, take a hard look at your AI generated content. Simply giving an excellent prompt to ChatGPT or Gemini and churning out blogpost after blogpost doesn’t cut the mustard anymore

And finally, use other ways to get traffic than the Google Search Results. I completely understand that if you are now not getting any customers or leads on your website you are at a loss. 

But realize the internet offers numerous options to get traffic, both paid and unpaid. For instance:

• Use Social Media to get to your audience. Especially LinkedIn when working in B2B. Or Instagram or TikTok, depending on your audience.
• Use other platforms, such as Youtube, podcasting, Rumble etc.
• Use paid ads, like Google Ads, Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)

My own thoughts on AI generated content

This blog BartAfilliate is about AI and Online Marketing. Do I have to scratch this, sell my domain and look for another niche? Nah, of course not.

The way I read Google’s Update guidelines is that it’s perfectly ok to keep on publishing AI generated content. On the condition that this content meets the Ranking Guidelines. In other words, offer value and help in your content.

Now, I myself have been experimenting with both writing content myself here and publishing pure AI content. Mainly to test the latest developments on the AI front and to see if AI content can rank higher on its own merrits.

But now I also realize I have to spend more time actually editing said AI content. My impressions took a short nosedive, but are steadily increasing again.

All in all, this is a good thing. AI really is a gamechanger in the Online Marketing space, ideation and research, time management, creating content can be done at your fingertips.

But in the end we also want to have quality win out over quantity.