Google Search Ranking Update: March 2024
Earlier this week, we were notified of the Google Search Ranking Update. This change is designed to show more relevant and authentic content and less content that it meant to attract clicks aka spam. Google will now rank sites using a variety of innovative signals and approaches versus one signal or system. This is good news for businesses and companies that have valuable content for their target audience. It’s difficult to rank higher than sites that use manipulation tricks because they are aggressive with their tactics.
This could mean big changes in your search result experience. Pandu Nayak, a VP of search at Google, said that Google’s measurements “show a reduction in ‘unhelpful content’ by up to 40 percent.”
New Spam Policies
In addition, Google announced additional spam policies that target those that are using bad practices to rank their site at the top. These policies were designed to discourage these practices that can impact the quality of Google search results. These three new spam policies are:
- Expired Domain Abuse. When someone buys a domain name from a company or brand that no longer exists but uses their reputation to put low-quality content that is not relevant. For example, using a defunct animal rescue non-profit’s old domain name to advertise sports betting.
- Scaled Content Abuse. This is when a site creates large amounts of unoriginal content to manipulate search engines versus trying to write content that would be helpful to their audience. This can happen through automation, human effort or a combination of both.
- Site Reputation Abuse. This might sound a lot like expired domain abuse except that the host website has third-party content like ads. For the ads to exist, the host site doesn’t have much involvement on what type of ad it is. It can be something that is not relevant to their site audience.
The new policies won’t take effect until May 5, 2024 so site owners have time to clean up their online presence if they are using any of these bad business practices.
Google Search Ranking Conclusion
I have always told my clients to write authentic relevant information and not to create pages and posts for the sake of ranking high. I know it can be frustrating when you are doing everything right and you can’t seem to rank in the first page. Hopefully, you will see positive changes after these new policies are in place. In the meantime, create an editorial calendar, continue to be consistent, write helpful articles and most importantly, be authentic.
