This week the digital cosmos got hit by a meteor. Not literally, but the impact of Google’s March 2024 Core Update is just as earth-shattering — with every website owner and SEO expert feeling the ground shake beneath their feet.
This update was far from a simple algorithm adjustment. Thousands, if not millions, of web pages have been deindexed overnight! And with the absence of clear guidelines beyond “low-quality content,” SEOs are left grappling with which sites will soon get the axe.
With the potential to transform the way websites climb or fall on the SERPs, the March 2024 update naturally came with an avalanche of questions:
Will my site survive?
Is all my hard work about to vanish into thin air?
Can I still get my traffic back?
Let’s break down Google’s March 2024 core update — which websites are vulnerable, what to do if your content gets flagged, and how to future-proof your work.
Reducing Unhelpful, Unoriginal Content by 40%
Let’s face it. The internet can sometimes feel like a Wild West of content. From the good and the bad to the downright ugly, we’ve seen it all.
But here’s something that might just make your day: Google is on a mission to clean up town.
With its March 2024 core update, Google has set an ambitious goal — slashing unhelpful and unoriginal content in search results by a whopping 40 percent.
How exactly does Google plan to do this?
Emphasize Relevance and Helpfulness
Google has always had one goal: to help people like us find what we’re looking for. Not fluff or false promises but information that genuinely helps or informs us. For publishers, this means putting quality over quantity and relevance over repetition.
Google will be demoting websites that do not provide helpful content while also elevating the ones that truly offer value, ensuring they receive the recognition they merit.
Improve Spam Policies
The new update strengthens Google’s anti-spam policies. By cracking down on scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse, Google algorithms will be able to identify and remove low-quality content that is solely created to manipulate SERP rankings and fails to add real value for users.
Remove Bad Content Without Targeting AI
Let’s get something straight – Google isn’t going after AI. The main goal is to get rid of weak, repetitive content, no matter how it’s made.
It’s a call for genuine content, making sure every piece adds something meaningful to users. Google wants to weed out the boring stuff, whether it’s auto-generated or written by human hands.
With Google cleaning house, it’s time to step up your game. Gone are days when regurgitated or thin content could skate by unnoticed. Stuffing your articles with keywords or clickbait headlines ain’t getting you to Page One!
Google’s getting smarter, and with these new spam policies, sites cranking out unoriginal or manipulative content will find themselves slipping down those rankings — or worse, out of the Google index!
Google clearly states, “Make pages primarily for users, not search engines.” That sentence alone should be etched onto every digital marketer’s coffee mug.
Consequences of Non-Compliance
Just one full week since Google announced its March 2024 core update, social media is already buzzing with publishers pulling their hair out over entire networks of websites getting wiped out from Search.
Here’s one example from Mark Williams-Cook on LinkedIn:
Which websites are getting the boot?
Based on our analysis, these are the types of content that are likely to get flagged:
- Volumes of detectable content
- Articles that don’t provide a clear, straight answer to the search term
- Link farms
- Guest post websites
- Websites full of ads
- Websites with poor user experience
Here’s another thing to watch out for:
To maintain your good standing in search engines, don’t do any of the above.
How do you know if your website has been hit by the Google update? You can check two ways:
- Go to Google and type “site:website.com” and see if your website is showing up in the search results.
- Log in to Google Search Console and see if you have any spam notifications. Also, check if there is a drop in your rankings. You can find this in the left sidebar, Checking Security & Manual Actions.
If your entire website is affected, you might see an error like this:
Strategies for Adapting to the New Update
Google’s March 2024 core update has everyone on their toes. But don’t sweat it. We’ve got some actionable advice to help website owners and content creators adhere to Google’s updated guidelines and boost site ranking.
Create Value-Driven Content
In this era of information overload, only the juiciest oranges make it into the basket. Your content needs to be engaging for users while meeting the requirements for relevance and helpfulness that Google loves so much.
Here’s how you can squeeze out every drop of value from your content creation efforts:
- Talk about what matters: Dive deep into topics that resonate with your audience but stay relevant within your niche. Make each piece informative or entertaining – better yet if you manage both.
- Showcase originality: Your voice is unique — let it shine through in every blog post or video script. Unoriginal rehashes get buried under pages nobody visits.
- E-E-A-T well: Fuel up on Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness by backing claims with data and keeping things accurate as well as current. Remember that real stories beat hypotheticals any day.
It’s impossible to tick all these boxes if you’re using a generalized AI tool like ChatGPT. But with a specialized SEO AI writer like Content at Scale’s Rankwell suite — which is trained to write like a human — you have a great starting point for creating original, in-depth blog posts that embody E-E-A-T.
Prioritize User Experience
Your website’s connection with Google and, more importantly, with its visitors, isn’t just about the buzzword “user experience.” It’s about something deeper and more fundamental.
To meet Google’s refined ranking criteria, here are some tips:
- Speed up your site: Nobody likes waiting. A fast-loading page keeps users happy and engaged.
- Mobile-first design: With most searches happening on mobile devices, ensure your site looks great and functions flawlessly across all screens.
- Navigate easily: Make sure users can find what they need without getting lost in a maze of menus.
The aim is simple: create an online space where people want to hang out because everything works smoothly, loads quickly, and feels intuitive.
There you have it — a cheat sheet straight from the future you who’s already embraced and adapted to Google’s latest core update.
The secret to weathering any Google update is passionately delivering a top-notch user experience intertwined with genuine, rich content. Because at the end of the day, that’s what keeps your visitors coming back for more.
Future-Proof Your Website Now
We stand at a crossroads where Google is pushing us towards creating better web experiences – ones filled with engaging narratives rather than keyword-stuffed gibberish aimed solely at gaming SEO metrics.
In this seismic shift lies opportunity — an invitation to elevate your content game beyond conventional signals and truly connect with your audience in meaningful ways. This isn’t about gaming the SERPs with hundreds of AI-generated blog posts a day but enriching the web ecosystem one quality piece at a time.
So next time you sit down to write some killer web copy or blog post remember: write from heart because now more than ever before — substance beats strategy hands-down.