The article discusses Google’s completion of the March 2024 spam update rollout, which began on March 5 and ended on March 20, taking a total of 14 days and 21 hours to complete. While the spam update has concluded, the March 2024 core update is still in progress and is expected to continue rolling out for the next few weeks.
Google introduced three new spam policies with this update, including scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse, and site reputation abuse. The first two policies went into effect immediately, while the site reputation abuse policy will not be enforced until May. Following the introduction of these new policies, there was a surge in manual actions related to pure spam issues, although these manual actions are separate from the algorithmic demotions associated with the spam update.
It is important to differentiate between manual actions, which are conducted by humans at Google to identify spam policy violations, and algorithmic updates, such as the March 2024 core update and spam update, which are automated processes. Websites can be impacted by both manual actions and algorithmic updates.
The article emphasizes the significance of the recent changes in Google’s search results due to the core update, spam update, and new spam policies. It advises caution and patience before making any drastic changes to websites until the core update is fully implemented. Although the March 2024 spam update has been completed, Google may release more spam updates in the future, and the ongoing core update could still lead to fluctuations in search rankings.
Overall, the article highlights the dynamic nature of Google’s search algorithms and the importance of staying informed about updates and changes to optimize website performance and visibility in search results.
Read Full Article