Impact of Google’s March 2024 Core Update on Content Marketing

Overview of Google's March 2024 Core Update

The March 2024 core update to Google's search algorithm removes low-quality content from SERPs in favour of helpful content. “Low quality” here signifies spam, content published only to get clicks or content that manipulates the algorithm to rank higher. 

In the post published on Search Central, Google announced that it now has a new spam policy which uses multiple signals to judge the helpfulness of content. Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

"Just as we use multiple systems to identify reliable information, we have enhanced our core ranking systems to show more helpful results using a variety of innovative signals and approaches. There's no longer one signal or system used to do this,….."

So, what are these supposed "innovative signals and approaches," you may ask? Well, there are three key signals in Google's new spam policy. We've explained each one of them below. 

1. Expired Domain Abuse

This is a common practice used to manipulate search rankings, which involves repurposing an expired domain. People purchase an expired domain that has decent authority, high organic traffic, and quality backlinks. Then, they take advantage of this reputation by posting low-quality content. 

While the content remains substandard, the domain's past reputation keeps it afloat, generating not only traffic but revenue. With the latest update, Google plans to stop this practice.

2. Scaled Content Abuse

Another way people manipulate search ranking is by going on an absolute content blitzkrieg, most of it unoriginal and without any substantial value. Google's plan to curb this practice isn't surprising as the practice picked up pace with the advent of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and BARD. 

The search giant also claimed that it's in no way or form against automation. However, it reiterated its strong stance of taking action against spam, whether created manually, through automated processes, or a mix of both. 

3. Site Reputation Abuse

Lastly, Google is also determined to prevent site reputation abuse, wherein website owners publish third-party content unrelated to their site's purpose, such as sponsored posts, advertisements, etc. 

Such content is irrelevant to the site's actual audience and makes it difficult for them to find the information they really need. However, it's still served them and benefits from the host site's traffic. 

Impact of Google's March 2024 Core Update

In its announcement, Google also informed that the new spam policy will take effect starting May 5, 2024. So, what's with all the articles about websites being deindexed? That's because Google also initiated simultaneous manual action against sites that violate its policies. 

Manual action is basically human reviewers conducting checks on websites and removing them completely from SERPs. While these actions aren't part of the algorithm update, they make the direction Google is taking with its new spam policy perfectly clear. 

Source

Originality.ai conducted a study which checked almost 79,000 sites in March 2024. The study found that manual action was taken on 1,446 sites. It also revealed that 100% of these sites had some form of AI-generated content. Moreover, AI content comprised around 90 to 100% of all content on at least half of these sites. 

The study also reported that manual action led to a total loss of over 20 million visitors/month. Three websites with over 1 million organic visitors were hit the worst as their traffic crumbled to zero. Also, most of the websites that faced deindexation had poor domain authority. 

Source

Starting May 5, 2024, you should see more sites lose traffic or get deindexed if they use low-quality content, be it manually created or created using AI. In addition, sites that try to benefit from the reputation of expired domains and other sites should also meet the same fate.

Planning to use ChatGPT for content? Read: Is ChatGPT really worth it for content marketers?

How to Adapt to Google's New Spam Policy?

If you've been ardently following Google's EEAT guidelines, you shouldn't worry about any manual action or penalty when the new spam policy takes effect. If your site was affected by manual action, you would've already received a notification in your Google Search Console. 

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