Google has just announced its latest algorithm update on March 5, 2024, an update aimed at significantly improving the quality of search results and user experience. No half-hearted, there are 2 updates: core update and spam update.
With this update, Google aims to better understand user needs with more relevant and quality results and eradicate spamming practices that produce low-quality results on the SERP.
Brief information, the last core update occurred last year, in November 2023, while the last spam update was in October 2023. What are the details? Listen until the end, okay?
Google Core Update March 2024 Outline
In the latest announcement on its official website, Google gave an in-depth look at the March 2024 core update, which changes the old system.
At the heart of this update is an evolution in the content scoring system, where Google aims to more effectively identify and present content that is truly useful to users.
SEO practitioners must be prepared. The reason, according to Google; There will be more ranking fluctuations than a regular core update. They said that this core update will most likely be completed within a month.
Google emphasizes that there are no special actions that content creators need to take other than continuing to focus on creating content that puts user needs first.
New Spam Policy
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| Google Search Status Dashboard |
Google is constantly working to improve the quality of its search results, and one of its latest moves is the introduction of an updated spam policy.
This new policy is aimed at addressing three main areas that are often exploited by spam practices.
1. Expired Domain Abuse
Expired domain is a domain whose registration period has expired. Usually these domains are bought and sold on the domain market. The purpose of buying and selling domains is varied, one of which is quite popular is for link farming or PBN activities.
One example of misuse of an expired domain is buying a domain with a health niche, then creating content about gambling in the hope that the ranking on Google will be very good because before it expired, the domain had a good reputation.
Google is against this kind of practice because this abuse is done by taking advantage of the good name/reputation of the previous site owner to make useless content useful.
Apart from being used for PBN (Private Blog Network), recently expired domains are also often used for online gambling sites.
2. Scaled Content Abuse
Scaled content abuse is a condition where many page additions aim to manipulate search results and do not help users.
An example of this practice is producing a lot of unoriginal content (usually plagiarized) which does not provide any value to users.
This rule builds on old rules regarding auto-generated content, so that Google can respond well to this abuse, no matter what the content creation process is, whether through automation, humans, or a combination of both.
From this update, there is actually a message for AI users who mass produce content. Make sure that the content is helpful for users, not just chasing the quantity of content.
3. Site Reputation Abuse
Finally, regarding misuse of website reputation. The purpose of this abuse is where a third party website page is published with little or no direct supervision from the first party.
The aim is to prevent search ranking manipulation by utilizing ranking “signals” from the main website. These third party pages can include sponsored content, advertising, partners, or other pages that usually stand alone from the main website and often do not provide added value for users.
The new policy does not consider all third-party content to be infringing, only content that is hosted without strict oversight and aims to manipulate search rankings. Examples are advertorials or payment providers from 3rd parties (usually fintech companies).
A real example in Indonesia is an online gambling company that hacked a government website (domain .go.id) as the landing page for its gambling site. This practice, apart from spam in Google's eyes, also violates the ITE Law because it carries out access/hacking without permission.
Conclusion
We can see that from this March 2024 core update, Google has again emphasized that the most important thing is user experience.
In the conclusion of the official March 2024 core update page, Google stated that the new rules/updates they issued were aimed at constant improvement and fighting spam so that parties who create helpful content can "win" against spammers.
If you are still confused about helpful content, Google has explained it on this page. In closing, let's leave spam techniques that clearly won't last long and start focusing on building a site with a good and long-lasting user experience!