The latest Google Core Update was released on March 5, 2024. Here is what you need to know about your website and SEO efforts.
What Google Says About the Latest Core SEO Update
You can read about Google's May 5, 2024 Core Update here:
https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-update-march-2024/
This core update impacts:
- Scaled Content Abuse
- Site Reputation Abuse
- Expired Domain Abuse
Let's take a look at examples of what these things mean, avoiding the SEO jargon and Google's smoke and mirrors explanation.
What Is Scaled Content Abuse?
Scaled content abuse means literally what it says. Producing large volumes of content at scale, with human or AI creation, as spam will result in a penalty on your site.
Here is a simple explanation and example of scaled content abuse:
"Scaled content abuse is when large amounts of content are produced that do not answer a question, are designed for search engines only, and are of low quality."
Here are some examples of content created at scale that do not constitute scaled content abuse:
- Creating large numbers of website pages that contain statistical information with a meaningful synthesis.
- Location pages on. website that help guide a user to find products or services.
- Using AI to create content where the structure is created in a meaningful way by a human to answer a question with real life statistics and applications.
What is Site Reputation Abuse?
Website reputation abuse involves taking a higher authority site that allows user generated content authored by a webmaster and linked to that webmaster's inferior website. Here are some examples of site reputation abuse:
- Using a website like Medium to republish content that is on the original website.
- Using LinkedIn to promote an article that is AI written and has links to the author/webmaster's website.
- Using free website builders with high page rank when the webmaster has a main URL of lesser page rank.
What is Expired Domain Abuse?
Expired domain abuse involves buying a domain that once ranked well organically and converting it into something else hoping to capitalize on that expired domain's past reputation. Here is an example of expired domain abuse:
- A domain belonged to a reputable company that is no longer in business.
- That domain had high page rank.
- That domain was purchased and converted into a guest blog website with meaningless spun content.
- The site offers links to websites, but does not use UGC, sponsored, or no-follow link attributes.
Websites that constitute expired domain abuse were largely removed from Google's index.