As the premier search engine on the internet, Google holds a responsibility to ensure that searchers can find what they’re looking for. Google considers this duty among its highest priorities. To achieve this goal, Google maintains an ongoing, dedicated effort to improve search quality and combat abuse of spam and non-useful space. Google has spent years refining its algorithm to weed out keyword-stuffers, plagiarisers, spam content, and low-value pages that do not provide for the searcher’s intent.
Each year, Google releases new algorithm updates which help to hone in on the highest quality search results while discarding low-value results and penalising new ways spammers use to get around the system. Recently, there has been increasing focus on site reputation abuse, in which low-credibility pages are posted on high-credibility sites. This has made it necessary to refine just how page credibility is assigned, leading to a major portion of Google’s core algorithm update released in March 2024.
Google’s March 2024 Core Algorithm Update. A Quick Review.
Google’s core algorithm update represents a significant change in Google’s search algorithm and can have far-reaching effects and often impact page SERP ranking across the board. Each core update focuses on a few key priorities, seeking to pursue a specific aspect of the goal of improving search result quality.
In recent updates, Google has focused on user experience and content’s ability to provide for the search intent of each targeted keyword. In the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update, the primary target is site reputation abuse and the prevalence of thin, low-quality content pages. This targeting structure has had earth-shaking effects on the content marketing landscape because site reputation has been a foundational part of many visibility strategies.
While this has caused increased volatility in site rankings since the update, it has provided an overall improvement in content quality with each search.
What is Site Reputation Abuse and Why it Matters
Site reputation abuse is when low-quality content is hosted on a high-reputation site. This can happen when a high-ranking site allows users to post third-party content through their domain. Sites like Medium and LinkedIn, for example, allow users to post their own professional articles. Many of these articles are high-quality, written by professionals with valuable insights and personal quality standards, which contributes to the overall reputation of the site.
However, there is very little oversight that might stop users from posting plagiarised, AI-generated, spam-advertisement, and otherwise low-value content through these trusted domains. For example, you might click on what appears to be an article written by a financial manager only to find a payday loan advertisement in its place.
While these big-name sites are recognizable, the same is true across many high-value websites with potentially low-value privately posted content. Educational websites where users post their own study guides, lesson plans, and private courses are often targeted due to their openness to unregulated third-party content hosting.
Why This Benefits Third-Party Spammers
This activity benefits spammers who want to increase visibility for their low-quality content. Their content piggybacks on the SERP ranking of the trusted websites in a parasitic relationship that serves to slowly damage the reputation of the host. This has coined the term “Parasite SEO,” where content marketing is used in a harmful way for websites that host third-party content.
On-Site Relevant Ad Content is Not Targeted
Interestingly, the March 2024 core update penalises unrelated spam, but intentional on-site ad content and “advertorials” are not targeted. For example, a website that posts how-to guides that spotlight their own product or provide a valuable product comparison that is relevant to their readers is still considered quality content.
This allows websites to pursue their own content marketing strategies and host valuable third parties that consider the intent of the site users and readers while down-rating specific pages that clearly only have their own spam-like priorities in mind.
Google’s Enforcement of New Site Reputation Abuse Policy
The challenge in combatting site reputation abuse is to penalise only some pages of an otherwise valuable website. Google has accomplished this by deranking or deindexing portions of websites from its search engine where site reputation abuse is detected.
A search index is a database of information about search targets. On Google, search targets are web pages and online content. Google’s web crawlers explore the internet, creating index data for each page based on the qualities of the page. The crawlers remember keywords, images, content density, host domain, and other factors that help your web pages appear as results of a user search. Only indexed pages can become search results, which is why you can use metadata to mark some back-end pages or under-construction websites to be excluded from indexing unless/until the content is ready to be made public.
By deindexing pages and website segments, Google can completely remove them as search candidates. This makes those pages unsearchable so that they can only be found by manually exploring the website itself.
Potential Impact on SEO
Many sites have seen a change in their SERP ranking because of the widespread re-evaluation of site reputation and segmented deindexing. The good news is that sites and content writers still acting in good faith, aiming to provide the best and most relevant content to readers, will still receive favour in Google ranking.
Google continually aims to prioritise high-quality, trustworthy, and relevant content in search results. As low-quality results are removed from the SERPs, more genuine and organic content will rise to the surface.
Brands that provide high-value content will have a better chance at their favoured keywords and highly visible SERP positions with the keyword-stuffed spam removed from each page. High-reputation sites will continue to top the charts without the burden of those abusive third-party content creators, while small business sites have a better chance of rising through the ranks.
SEO Strategy for 2024
Google tends to release a few core algorithm updates a year. Sites may still be reacting to the March 2024 update, but there’s another one around the corner. Google is expected to continue making significant changes to its algorithms throughout the rest of 2024.
Focus on Engaging Content
The changes expected this year are likely to further refine the criteria Google uses to determine both site reputation and page credibility. Forewarned, businesses should prepare for more potential changes in SERP ranking as a result. Businesses and site owners will benefit from focusing on creating valuable, engaging content that establishes both their authority and reader trust.
Audit for Low-Value and Spam Content
In contrast, now is also an important time to audit your website’s third-party content and slice out pages that are likely to be targeted as site reputation abuse. You can protect your site’s own reputation and ranking by removing parasite users and content from the platform. We will likely also see sites developing their own self-auditing methods to detect site reputation abuse, as it can now have a significant impact on how Google chooses to index the entire website.
It may also be a good idea to cull any “thin” articles in your blog archive, as well. Any content seen as low-quality and disrespectful to the user search intent may be targeted in this and future algorithm updates.
Key Google Takeaways
With each Google core update, we are reminded of the importance of maintaining a strong, positive online reputation. Businesses have every reason to audit their content to eliminate any examples of low-quality articles or spammy practices.
Brands today need long-term content strategies focused on providing value to users, with robust implementation ensuring that content will be seen as valuable long after it is published. SEO trends come and go, but how much value content offers to the reader based on their search intent is a constant.
Now is an important time to monitor your search rankings and be prepared to adapt your SEO strategies for future algorithm changes. For professional insights in how to build robust SEO and content strategies, contact us today.