The March 2024 Google Core Update focuses on reducing low-quality, unoriginal content and aims to show more useful and relevant content in search results. Let’s dive deeper.
The Need for Change
Have you noticed spammy or unuseful search results on Google in the recent past? Google has announced a significant algorithm update aimed at improving search quality by combating low-quality, spammy content. As always, Google watches behaviour and this move comes in response to growing complaints about search results being cluttered with irrelevant and poor-quality information.
The new update is designed to enhance the user experience by ensuring that only the most relevant and high-quality content surfaces in search engine results pages (SERPs). Good content will rank well, everything else will be pushed down to Page 2.
Understanding the Problem: The Rise of Spammy Content
Spammy content is often characterised by its intent to rank highly rather than provide valuable insights. This content typically lacks relevance and offers little to no value to users.. The significant increase in such content is partly due to the ease with which it can be generated, think ChatGPT, which is leading to keyword-stuffed, nonsensical text prioritising search engine ranking over user benefit. What Google wants is original content, not curated from other sources. Regurgitated information has no point of view or unique angle.
The Solution: Google’s Strategic Update
Google’s advancing algorithm adjustments aim to drastically reduce the presence of SEO spam by 40%, focusing on:
- Improving Quality Ranking: The new algorithm will favour the most helpful and useful content, ensuring it ranks higher in search results.
- Strengthening Spam Policies: Enhanced measures will be implemented to identify and filter out low-quality content, maintaining the integrity of search results.
“We believe these updates will reduce the amount of low-quality content on Search and send more traffic to helpful and high-quality sites”
Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management
Do you have spammy content?
Here are some good questions to ask of your content to determine if it’s valuable to your audience and can meet Google’s requirements. If you’ve answered yes to some of these, it’s time to re-evaluate your content strategy and realign with what your audience wants.
- Is your content written for humans?
- Is the content you’re publishing being read?
- When a visitor starts to consume your content (let’s call it a video, or a blog page), how long they do engage with that content?
- After consuming your content, does your user take the next-best-action to convert?
- Does your visitor ‘stop the scroll’ after consuming your content?
- Does your content demonstrate a depth of knowledge and first-hand expertise?
- Does your website have a primary focus or purpose that’s easily identifiable?
- Are you adding valuable commentary and first-party experiences to your content?
Combatting Black Hat Tactics
Black Hat Tactics are used by spammy sites to increase SEO and search results positioning. This has long been recognised by Google, and websites are penalised for using these tactics. This new update will specifically target black hat SEO tactics, including:
- Scaled Content Abuse: Down-ranking sites that produce mass content solely for improved rankings, neglecting the quality and usefulness of the content.
- Site Reputation Abuse: Penalizing the practice of hosting low-quality, spammy content on sites with previously established credibility.
- Expired Domain Abuse: Cracking down on the use of old domain names to propagate low-quality content.
“We’ll now consider very low-value, third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner to be spam. We're publishing this policy two months in advance of enforcement on May 5, to give site owners time to make any needed changes.”
Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management
What does this mean for you and your business?
The Google algorithm update necessitates a shift in content strategy for businesses and brands. To thrive in this new landscape, your business must prioritise creating high-quality, relevant, and user-centric content. Adapting to these changes is crucial for maintaining or improving search engine visibility and ensuring a positive user experience.
Strategies for Success:
Your killer strategy is to focus on creating valuable, informative, and engaging content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience. The key steps will have you well underway.
- Be the authority. Focus on your ‘unique ability’ - demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in key areas. Avoid creating irrelevant content on topics where you’re not the expert, and aren’t your core focus.
- Answer the questions. Give users the information they’re seeking; find out what their questions are and then solve their mystery. Never over-promise and under-deliver. Conduct thorough keyword research to ensure content relevance without resorting to keyword stuffing. Ditch the clickbait.
- Originality. Create original content that showcases your original thinking, personalised experiences and expert opinions. Consider the gaps in content and fill that gap. Tell it how it is. Think about how you can be different to everyone else.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you have a high volume on your website, conversion is key. Make sure the content you’re providing is relevant and offers quality information to your visitors. Investing in ethical SEO practices that align with Google’s guidelines will see you being rewarded.
This change reflects the evolving dynamics of digital content consumption and the need for a more refined, value-driven approach to SEO. Businesses and brands that adapt to these changes and focus on delivering exceptional content will be best positioned to succeed in this new era of search, our advice: don’t get left behind!
We understand the importance of Google’s Algorithm update, and what this means for your business. We are ready to guide you through your digital marketing journey if you find yourself stuck. Our team of SEO experts and content creators specialise in driving meaningful engagement and results. We can help elevate your content and use this algorithm update to put you ahead of the competition.
