Google’s March 2024 Core Update has now finished rolling out, it started on March 5, 2024 and completed 45 days later on April 19, 2024. This was a big core update, where Google said that this core update is more complex and involves changes to several core systems, while ending the standalone useful content update.
Google didn’t tell us until April 26th, 52 days after the rollout started, which ended on April 19th.
A Google spokesperson told us: “As the web and spam tactics continue to evolve, we will continue to work to reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in Search. As always, we welcome and encourage feedback from both users as of the owners of the site.” Google added:
The ranking of the March core update improvements, which addressed spam and low-quality content in Search, have now been rolled out. As a reminder, on March 5th we released a series of significant improvements to our core systems, as well as several updates to our spam policies, to reduce search engine content in Search.
45% reduction. Google initially told us there would be a 40% reduction in low-quality, unhelpful content. Well, now Google said it ended up being closer to 45%.
A Google spokesperson said: “The updates led to bigger quality improvements than we originally thought: you’ll now see 45% less low-quality and unoriginal content in search results, compared to the 40% improvement what we expected in this work”.
Other changes Google too updated help center page explaining how site owners can remedy drops in Google Search rankings.
feedback Google also created a new one feedback form for site ranking changes that you’d like the Google Search team to review more closely.
Overlapping updates. Google also released the March 2024 Spam Update which started on March 5th and was completed on March 20th. Google also launched a flurry of manual actions related to pure spam issues after these updates began rolling out. Finally, Google changed its basic vital data to use INP instead of FID during this time period.
Because we’ve had so many overlapping changes, it would be difficult to identify which Google change may have affected your site’s performance in Google Search.
Learn more about the March 2024 Core Update. “The March 2024 Core Update is a more complex update than our regular Core Updates, involving changes to several core systems. It also marks an evolution in the way we identify the usefulness of content,” Google’s Chris Nelson he wrote.
Elizabeth Tucker, Product Manager, Google Search, told Search Engine Land that the update will help reduce unhelpful content on Google Search by 40%. But Google has updated that number to say 45%.
“We expect the combination of this update and our previous efforts to collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%,” Tucker. he wrote.
This update, unlike some previous core updates, includes improvements to several components of the overall core system. This March Core Update will have several updates, since this update touched several systems within the core update, Google decided to roll out updates to these core systems over the past few weeks.
Google said this update has refined the way it understands which web pages are “unhelpful, have a poor user experience, or feel like they were built for search engines rather than people.” This “could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries,” Google added.
With this March 2024 core update, Google will stop announcing new feature updates as the feature content system has been incorporated into the main update system.
The last useful content update, the September 2023 useful content update, was a large update that affected several sites. Hopefully, some affected sites will see relief from this March 2024 core update, but it’s hard to tell at this point. The useful content system classifier was revised and is now included in the March 2024 core update.
Mordy Oberstein wrote about the ire of this March core update, calling it non-linear.
What to do if you get hit. Google has given advice on what to look out for if a core update has negatively affected you in the past. Google hasn’t given much new advice here.
There are no specific actions to take to recover. A negative impact on rankings may not indicate a problem with your pages. Google has provided a list of questions to consider if your site is affected by a core update. Google said that you might see some recovery between core updates, but the biggest change would be after another core update.
In short, write content that is useful to people and not to rank in search engines.
“There is nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they have made satisfying content meant for people. For those who may not be ranked as well, we encourage you to read our creating useful, reliable and people-centric content help page,” Nelson explained.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
Why we care Google algorithm updates are critical for all brands, businesses, and organizations because they can affect your site’s performance in search results. Any change in the ranking of a core update, positive or negative, can affect organic traffic, conversions and revenue.
Knowing when Google makes these updates lets site owners know if traffic fluctuations were the result of a change to the site or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm.
