Continuing the trend we outlined in our previous entry, Google’s Core and Spam Update for March 2024 dropped not one but two major updates in early March 2024 – a core algorithm update and a spam update, both updates sending shockwaves throughout the SEO world . Granted, there’s a lot of people on various channels claiming to know excatly how things will shape up but, the truth is it’s still too early to say.
Let’s review what we know so far from Google’s documentation, explore the effects we’re already seeing play out across the web, and discuss what may be yet to come as these updates continue to roll out.
But first, some reactions.
On the Google Core Web Vitals change today, @johnmu wrote on LinkedIn "it's not going to make your site's rankings jump up" - story updated at https://t.co/GGLHqT9YnX - hat tip @glenngabe pic.twitter.com/yopMe9QPId
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 12, 2024
Google: we announced the March 2024 core update & new spam policies that, in combination, are designed to show less content made to attract clicks and more content that people find useful.
— Nikolay Shmichkov (@malefictum) March 12, 2024
Google SERP: (shows useful links)
Googlee SERP vs Bing Serp#HCU #googleupdate pic.twitter.com/tYhkDdAWN5
The Core Update
Google’s Core and Spam Update aims to de-emphasize content made only for appeasing search engines and ranking factors instead of genuinely helping web users. Google’s documentation states it is “showing less content that feels like it was made to attract clicks, and more content that people find useful.” But don’t panic – Google clarified that optimizing content for search visibility is still acceptable as long as the content actually provides value. This update continues the evolution that started with the Helpful Content Update in late 2022, which initially focused on identifying and rewarding truly helpful pages over thin, search-centric ones.
The Spam Update
The update ooks at websites employing shady black hat SEO tactics that violate Google’s published Webmaster Guidelines. We’re talking things like keyword stuffing, buying links, serving cloaked pages to humans and search bots, and other underhanded attempts to game the system.
But it didn’t stop there. The Spam Update also introduced three brand new spam policies that’re now off-limits:
Expired Domain Abuse – Buying an expired domain solely to republish low-quality, search-intent-driven content on its old URLs in hopes of inheriting its previous rankings.
Scaled Content Abuse – Mass-producing countless low-quality pages programmatically with little authentic value, simply to rank for more keywords and drive ad revenue.
Site Reputation Abuse – Publishing thin or completely irrelevant content on otherwise reputable websites, likely paid for by third parties, purely for the sake of inheriting that site’s ranking abilities.
In an unusual move, Google has given affected sites until May 5th, 2024 to remove any content that could be considered Site Reputation Abuse before facing ranking penalties related to this update. Most updates drop with no such advance warning.
This one-two punch of Google’s Core and Spam Update focused on rewarding helpful content and the Spam Update aimed at smashing black hat tactics has already caused major volatility in the search results…and we’re likely just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Google’s own documentation warns: “It’s likely there will be more fluctuations in rankings than with a regular core update.” They expect the turbulence to continue over the next few weeks as the updates fully roll out across their systems.
So grab your life vest and buckle up, folks – it’s going to be a very bumpy ride!
1. How Google's Core and Spam Update Affects You
Google March 2024 Core/Spam Update Early Reversals
— iCONQUER (@iCONQUERseo) March 14, 2024
Volatility in ranking has already been noticed since the adjustments began to go out, but are some already being reversed? People have seen a reversal of early decreases in ranking and traffic.https://t.co/Zm91fMsKce
SERP Rankings and Organic Traffic Drops
In the days immediately following the updates going live, webmasters across various industries reported significant drops in their rankings for many keywords, resulting in steep declines in their organic search traffic. This has included a wide range of sites:
- Travel blogs
- Affiliate sites
- Niche information portals
- Major Q&A platforms like Reddit and Quora have experienced visibility declines in search
- Some case study and authority sites built transparently by well-known SEOs
The impact has ranged from moderate organic traffic losses of 20-30% all the way up to some sites losing over 65% of their Google search traffic virtually overnight. While some have seen minor recoveries, many are still stuck at depressed levels weeks later with no clear path forward.
2. Who Does the Core and Spam Update Make Most Vulnerable?
While these updates have affected a wide range of sites, a few common threads have emerged for who seems most at risk of being hit:
Sites relying heavily on AI-generated, spun, or largely automated content produced at scale with thin value
Affiliate sites simply publishing collections of affiliate links or lukewarm reviews with little expertise
Huge publishers allowing sponsored posts or other forms of thin, irrelevant content for monetization
Owners purposely purchasing expired domains solely to inherit their backlink profiles and rankings
Any site deemed by Google’s algorithms as prioritizing technical SEO and ranking factors over authentic expertise and helpfulness for users
The YouTube video commentary around this update has been particularly interesting. While many channels are breathlessly reporting that well-researched, high word count “quality content” has been nuked in favor of scraper sites, mainstream SEO sources like SearchEngineLand suggest the hits are much more targeted at the types of low-quality pages described above that fail to deliver any unique value
3.Manual Actions and Deindexing
Beyond just algorithmic ranking suppression, Google has also issued numerous sitewide manual actions as part of this spam update – meaning human reviewers determined certain sites violated Google’s guidelines, often around the new expired domain, scaled content, and site reputation abuse policies.
Many site owners woke up to alarming messages in Google Search Console about “pure spam” and content generated through “aggressive spam techniques such as automatically generate gibberish, cloaking, scraping content from other websites, and/or repeated or egregious violations of Google’s spam policies for web search.” Yeah, they’re not messing around with the wording here.
In some extreme cases, entire websites from well-known creators have been deindexed from Google altogether, essentially making them invisible in search results for the time being. While some have experienced temporary reinclusions where their sites showed back up in Google for a day before getting deindexed again, others remain completely banished from the indexes as of this writing.
4. Confusion, Chaos, and Google Panic
With such a widespread impact hitting numerous high-profile sites and little to no official guidance from Google beyond some vague policy language, fear and confusion have spread like wildfire through the SEO community over the past few weeks.
Social media like Twitter has become a veritable battlefield of speculation, accusations, and cries for help as site owners grapple with manual actions they may or may not understand while desperately trying to determine Google’s true intent and avoid any missteps that could exacerbate issues with future refreshes.
In the fog of it all, some owners of sites receiving manual actions are claiming their content is in fact high-quality, manually produced work by subject matter experts that should be well within Google’s guidelines. They suspect Google’s systems have gone haywire, incorrectly punishing good actors alongside the bad.
Others are convinced there’s an anti-AI sentiment playing out, despite Google’s own use of AI in search quality and other products.
The mainstream worry is that Google has simply over-corrected on eliminating low-quality content, inadvertently catching too many false positives in their net.
And of course, there’s no shortage of black hat operators claiming they’ve found bulletproof tactics moving forward while sharing misinformation and dubious “Michael Jacksonweb” tools promising to uncover low-competition niches Google simply missed with this round of updates.
In short, it’s complete and utter chaos with everyone seeming to have a different take based on their own personal experiences and third-hand anecdotes from friends in the space. The true scope and impact is still nearly impossible to nail down definitively nearly a month after the updates began rolling out. The situation remains chaotic as the industry awaits more clarity from Google…but we may be waiting a while.
Google Core and Spam Update March 2024 - initial data from @sistrix 👀👇 https://t.co/RRAkbmbdxA pic.twitter.com/DJVPdCQQab
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) March 15, 2024
5. What Can You Do?
Amid the cacophony across Twitter, YouTube, and the webmaster forums, what are the practical, level-headed considerations and potential action steps for sites seeing impact or hoping to steer clear of future penalties? Here are some tips based on Google’s guidance and analysis from respected industry sources:
Stay Calm, Be Patient
As tempting as it is to panic and start making rash changes, doing so could potentially cause more harm than good if you end up overcorrecting or removing quality content. With multiple updates rolling out gradually over several weeks, the dust has yet to fully settle across Google’s systems and the search results remain in flux. Take a deep breath, avoid doomer scenarios and excessive doom-scrolling through forums, and resist the urge to implement unverified “fixes” that could make matters worse or cause regressions if you revert algorithmic changes in search console. We don’t have enough information yet on the nuances of how these updates are assessing and scoring pages. The wise move is to wait for more concrete guidance and to let the updates fully roll out first.
Prioritize Truly Helpful E-E-A-T Content
Now is an ideal time to revisit your content strategy through the lens of Google’s E-E-A-T criteria which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Focus on creating meaty, well-researched pieces that substantively educate your audience and provide unique value they can’t find elsewhere.
While production volume has historically been important for building topical authority across a niche, quality over quantity should now be the mantra. Identify credible subject matter experts who can infuse your content with specialized insight and analysis rather than settling for generalized, surface-level rewrites of third party sources that fail to deliver authentic expertise.
Conduct A Thorough Content Audit
Once the updates have rolled out more fully, conduct a thorough audit of your existing content catalog from an objective, critical lens. Flag any pages that could arguably fall under Google’s strict new spam policies such as:
- Thin affiliate posts light on substance and heavy on affiliate links
- Posts comprised largely of AI word salads, spun text or stitched outputs
- Content completely irrelevant to your brand publishing it (e.g. unnatural sponsored posts)
- Pages reeking of keyword stuffing or unnaturally optimized for search over actual usability
For any pieces that raise red flags in your audit, you have a few potential paths forward:
Remove or noindex the pages entirely
Substantially rewrite/edit for more authenticity and value
Clearly mark as sponsored/affiliate posts while bulking them up
It’s a tedious process but necessary for cleaning house and minimizing any additional vulnerability to future refreshes around these policies.
Explore Alternate Traffic Sources
While organic search visibility remains crucial for most sites’ success, these updates have shown the perils of putting all your eggs in one basket and being overly reliant on a single traffic source you have zero control over.
Now is an ideal time to revisit your marketing mix and double down on diversifying with other traffic streams:
- Build up your social media audience across relevant channels
- Invest in growing an email list of engaged subscribers – Pursue strategic partnerships or sponsorships
- Branch out into multimedia formats like video content, courses, paid products
- Explore pay-per-click advertising options
The end goal should be developing different revenue and growth engines for your brand so algorithm updates are no longer as existential of a threat, regardless of how punitive they may be in the short-term.
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