About the March 2024 Google Update
The Google Update for March 2024 has two sections
March 2024 Core Update
Google has described this core update as being far more complex than their usual core updates. As with some of their most recent updates, they focus on helpful content for their users. They have stated that this update “marks an evolution in how we identify the helpfulness of content.” Of course, with all Google updates, the finer details of how they are doing this are kept under wraps!
This update could take up to 1 month to roll out, so you could see some fluctuations in your traffic during this time. Our best advice would be to ensure that any new content you create is (as always) unique and helpful and shows your experience and expertise. Google has created a guide to help with content self-assessment: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
New Spam Policies Updates
The new spam policies coming into effect will also alter many websites’ ranking; they are;
- Expired Domain Abuse – when people purchased expired domains which have previously ranked well in the hope that their content will rank well and gain traffic regardless of the cohesion between the domain name and the content. This is not something you can do by accident – it’s done with purposeful malicious intent.
- Scaled Content Abuse – this involves creating may pages of duplicated or unhelpful content in the hope that a website will rank.
- Site Reputation Abuse – using link spam to piggy back off of high ranking sites to gain better rankings for your own site.
Advice from Bubble
At Bubble, SEO is one of the areas we work in, so we always want to ensure we are providing a service that is within Google’s best practices.
In our opinion, spam updates further clamp down on best practices that have been around for years.
- Don’t try and trick search engines. Make sure your whole site is cohesive; domain name, company name and content must all knit together.
- Make sure you’re creating high-quality content that serves a purpose for your user.We all know that some sites are abusing AI content generation platforms to add pages and pages of content to their website, which isn’t helpful and isn’t really that unique but rather a regurgitation of what is already out there. Sites doing this will likely see a decrease in impressions and clicks.
- Focus on building good quality links.Again, this is advice that has been around for years. When growing links to your site, the best way to do this is organically: don’t pay for links, and don’t base your link-building strategy around sites which rank highly or have a high domain rating. Instead, focus on sites that are useful in your industry, sites that complement your site’s information, and vice versa.
We know there are agencies out there who are still using old or black-hat SEO techniques. And while this sometimes achieves quick wins, it never works out in the long run.
We also know there are organisations out there that have been burned by these SEO agencies who are not using the best practices. It can be difficult to trust another agency when you have been promised so much and let down, but we invite you to talk to us. We don’t have set SEO packages, and we don’t guarantee rankings or links because every business is different, every industry is different, and every website is different.
Contact us today to talk about all things SEO. We can evaluate your site and your current SEO activities to give you tailored advice on what to do next.
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