Google Has Spoken. And This Time, It's Quite Scary. Or, It Could be. The March 2024 Update...Is Here

What’s The March 2024 Core Update All About????

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A journey that moves from today, goes backwards slightly, then forwards again.

We slightly geeky content and SEO specialists love a Google update.

It’s a highlight in our working lives. Sad, but true.

I kid you not; a core update lifts our spirits. Why? Because people doing things properly get rewards. Those taking the p*** - well, not so much. Here we have another encouraging little message that says, “Keep going – at some point, people will believe you when you warn against Chat GPT and other AI stuff”.

And so it has come to pass. Biiiiig time.

Making Great Big Waves in the World Wide Web

Google’s March 2024 core update has upset the apple cart for any website owner trying to game the system or mass-produce content for SERP rewards. (search engine results pages).

With several years’ experience in content and SEO (on and off-page, and technical), I can see that this applies to the smaller players, too – not just those gargantuan, pointless, weird, spammy content factories.

And, a shout out to the “black hatters” of this world: your time is up, my friend. Ain’t nobody listening to nuttin’ you say no more.

In the same way that the Panda and Penguin updates swept aside all the crappy crap in one fell swoop, this new shift is a thing. So substantial is it, in fact, that although it’s already launched, it will take the best part of a month to bed in completely. It’s a more complex update than previous ones and involves changes to multiple systems.

During this time, things could come and go a bit, but generally it’s taking hold in a robust linear fashion.

?Let’s Cut to the Chase

Google is de-indexing websites. They are removing some websites completely from the rankings. These sites will be dead parrots. They will be no more.

Google’s Core March 2024 Update

Google’s core update, launched on March 5th has been designed to, and I quote directly:

“Improve the quality of Search by showing less content that feels like it was made to attract clicks and more content that people find useful”.

They’re doing this in three significant ways:

1.???? Penalise scaled content abuse

2.???? Implement new spam policies, and

3.???? Punish site reputation abuse

Let’s examine each of these in turn, with a few content writer commentary bits thrown in for good measure. Oh, goody, I hear you say.

I’ll focus on the first one, and touch briefly on the other two.

1.??? Scaled Content Abuse

Google has long had a policy against web developers using AI to create unoriginal or low-quality large-scale content.

In other words, content that feels like it was put together for search engines rather than actual, real people. And, in case you were wondering, they (the search bots) can detect what this type of content is. Google is not the world’s biggest search engine for nothing.

Now, given that scaled AI content is more sophisticated, Google’s technologies have been updated and refined to spot what’s going on faster and more effectively. Examples of this black hat technique could be loads of drossy pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but are, in fact, the chocolate teapot of web content standards.

This drive concerns potentially removing about 40% of low-quality sites that provide useless stuff and a poor user experience.

Question:

Does this apply to me? After all, I only have a fifteen-page website. And, although I use chat CPT to create my 600-word blogs – and, okay, some of my content; okay, most of my content, I mean…I’ll be alright, won’t I? Chat GPT is brilliant! I’m just someone trying to grow my business.

Answer:

Well, you could be.

But.

Even smaller AI sites are coming under scrutiny.

Consider this: in 2022, Google started tuning its ranking systems to reduce unhelpful content on Search, and keep it at ultra-low levels. It was quite literally called the “useful content” update. This means that any AI-generated content that lacks value, is poorly structured or duplicated may face de-indexing. Equally, any content – whether by humans or machines - that fails to come up to snuff.

So, here’s the thing:

There’s your site, written by AI. And your closest competitor’s one, created by a professional, SEO-focused content writer. You’re posting your Chat GPT blogs frequently. What could possibly go wrong, do you think? Be aware: with a smaller site, too many blogs and Google will not be happy with you.

Plus, your robot simply cannot compete.

Given that Chat GPT is so brilliant (sarcasm klaxon), I’m one hundred per cent sure that you can say “yes” to the following:

• Do you know how to create content that speaks directly to your target audience?
• Have you demonstrated that you can solve their problems?
• Are you sure you can create a strong narrative and flow on a website page?
• Is your content correct and up to date? Much of Chat GPT is simply wrong.
• Does it use “you” and “your” more often than “we” and “our clients
• Does it avoid loads of typical AI cliché words and phrases? For instance, “transformative”, “whether you…”, “delve” and “unlock”?

Hold on. I thought you were an accountant. Or a personal trainer. Not a content/SEO person. My bad.

And those artificial 600-word blogs? No. Just no. Pointless, spammy, poorly done and totally against the point of what they’re supposed to do. Try 1200 words, with “how to”, “top tips” and useful guides.

Know any good copywriters?

Does Google Penalise Chat-GPT-Written Websites?

In my opinion and experience, yes. I’ve seen it happen.

With my eye-wateringly expensive SEO analysis software, I’ve been monitoring sites clearly created with AI over the last three weeks. I can spot them immediately. Out of the five I’ve spied on, they have all tanked in the rankings. And, shockingly, two have disappeared completely, even if I Google their business name.

Gone, gone, gone.

In truth, it is generally considered that Google does NOT do this – penalise AI content, I mean. Nevertheless, its algorithms are designed to assess the quality and relevance of content, and they may come after you if your content does not meet good standards.

Again, in my opinion, and I know what I’m talking about, the following equation is relevant:

Chat GPT = low quality, duplicated, repetitive, useless content = Chat GPT

Surviving Previous Updates

Did you survive?

In addition to last year's helpful content update, and long-established cute animal ones (Penguins, Pandas and such-like), Google also added E-A-T the previous year, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Here, you need to express on your site that you know your topic inside out, that you have fantastic expertise, and that you provide enough information for people to trust you.

There’s more to it than that, to be fair. But them’s the bare bones.

Then we had E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. See where we’re going here? ?These updates haven’t gone away. They’re stacking up, layer upon layer, to put the wind up some of the less-than-legitimate content creators out there.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

?Briefly – The Other Stuff

Expired domain abuse, where an expired domain name is bought and repurposed to manipulate search engine results, is for the chop.

Often, an older domain name has traction, and this practice is totally schlocky: they use low-value content that’s nothing to do with the domain (say a medical site) to play tricks.

?Site reputation abuse, when third-party pages are published on a high-ranking site without first-party insight and generally independent of a host site’s main purpose, also raises bright red flags. And, waves them about with gay abandon.

OK, So I’ll stop now

The takeaway here? Quality trumps quality.

Good equals good.

Bad equals bad.

Websites that offer thin, duplicated content without providing useful insights and perspectives will almost certainly come to Google’s attention – and not in a good way.

Do you offer value to your reader? I mean, is your site responsive, does it have clear calls to action and keep people well and truly engaged? If you’ve used Chat GPT, it still has to be informative and relevant. And, there needs to be a level of human involvement before you publish it. Finally, let people know you’ve relied on AI. You mustn’t mislead your readers.

User experience is everything.

Time to act, perhaps. ?Contact me, Susan Beckingham on 07816 684 756. Or, email me, [email protected]

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