A Massive Change to the SEO Industry
On March 5th, Google announced its March 2024 core update. We’re now seeing what the new policies laid out in that update look like in application and the impact is severe. Boogie on down the list with me!
3 New Spam Policies
Three new spam policies were introduced in the update and they all target bad-faith moves. Sites that violate these rules may be ranked lower or be deindexed completely (AKA disappear from Google).
1) Scaled Content Abuse
When several pages or websites are created to unfairly influence Google rankings, it’s called scaled content abuse. The content is often unoriginal, repetitive, and of no real value to users. It’s called “scaled content abuse” because it’s about using content to attempt to climb the ranks of Google in the shadiest of ways.
Automation & Generative AI
Google’s stance has long been that using automation, which includes generative AI, counts as spam when the main goal is to manipulate rankings. This update to the policy underlines, highlights, and puts a bunch of exclamation marks on that stance. Furthermore, this update now includes targeting scaled content creation methods some “creators” have leaned into in an effort to hide that manipulation. In short, automated content created to rank a site higher is finally a big target for Google.
Creating Multiple Worthless Pages
I’ve seen several sites going this route. Sometimes it’s because the people behind the pages genuinely don’t know what they’re doing but for the most part, it’s done intentionally. If you’ve ever been on a website that had pages with just a tiny bit of content on each and that content didn’t help you at all, you know how frustrating it can be. That’s because they’re not trying to help you—they’re trying to get Google to notice them and rank them higher. I wonder what the bounce rates on those sites are but I digress. Page structure matters and if that structure is manipulated, it’s a red flag.
2) Site Reputation Abuse
What is Site Reputation?
To understand site reputation abuse, we should first go over what site reputation is. Site reputation is the reliability, safety, and credibility a website carries. Although this is basically all perception-based, it’s largely determined by several factors, including domain age, content quality, number of visitors, update frequency, existence of an SSL, and more. In short, think about a person’s reputation and how that’s built. Site reputation is similar. Now think of how that person’s reputation can be destroyed…
Third-Parties Manipulating Rankings
If a site with a positive reputation publishes a page that has little or nothing to do with the intended purpose of the site, it may be site reputation abuse. That’s especially likely when that content offers no real value to site visitors. It’s essentially when garbage content tries to ride the coattails of valuable content to manipulate rankings. If Google catches it, the site owner has a problem. Often this occurs when third-party content enters the chat. The developers at Google have listed some examples of what will and won’t be considered site reputation abuse here.
3) Expired Domain Abuse
Some people and companies wait for domains to expire only to put unrelated, low-value content on them. The idea is that the domain they’re purchasing came with a solid reputation and therefore, people coming to the site via search queries are more likely to select it. An example would be a domain for a popular restaurant expired so someone purchased that domain to host some unrelated game app content. This is called expired domain abuse and it’s done on purpose.
Google is Deindexing Websites
With a greater emphasis on cracking down on unoriginal, irrelevant, spammy content in their search results, Google plans to remove up to 40% of the websites with content that fits those descriptors. So we’re talking about much more than a slap on the wrist. This means that if your site is using the tactics listed above to rank on Google, it could be snatched from Google instead.
Optimize Your Site for Humans
It’s as simple as that. Think about your audience and your expertise, then create content that checks those boxes. Remember the goal(s) of your website (and your goal can’t be “rank on Google”). This is where hiring a professional content writer who knows her way around SEO and Google comes in handy.