Google Update: March 2024 – “Major” Core Update 

Another month, another Google update. 

This Google update, announced on March 5 2024,  has caused much stir on SEO forums and LinkedIn, with every expert jumping on this and rightly so, it is being classed as a Major update and is being compared to the Panda and Penguin updates of the past.  

We have pulled together this summary of what we have seen, heard, and read to make it easy for you to understand.  

What we know about this Google update 

There are two core updates.  

1. Improve quality rankings – basically, Google is updating its algorithms to ensure the best quality content is served over mass-produced AI spam with no relevance. 

2. Updating Spam policies—This ties in with the point above. Google is updating its policies to “try” and keep out poor-quality content. For example, websites that have been repurposed as spam repositories by new owners. 

Why focus on these areas? 

The short version is mass-produced AI content or scaled content abuse.  

Google has a long-standing policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale with the goal of manipulating search rankings.  

Today, thanks to a rise in AI tools (ChatGPT, to name one), scaled content creation methods are more sophisticated, and whether the content is created purely through automation isn’t always as clear. To better address these techniques, Google is strengthening its policy to focus on this abusive behaviour—producing content at scale to boost search ranking—whether automation, humans, or a combination are involved. 

How significant is this Google update? 

As we highlighted in our intro, there has been a lot of noise since the announcement of this update. The reasons do shed some light on why. 

1. Sites that survived previous updates haven’t escaped this one.

2. Manual penalty actions are being received at speed. 

3. Whole sites are being deindexed from Google – not showing up in results. 

4. Inconsistent communication about manual actions from Google.

5. Old sites are getting manual actions. 

Who is most likely to be impacted by this update? 

In simple terms  

• Sites which are creating 1000s of poor-quality new content pieces regularly. 
• Sites that host poor-quality content have the potential to mislead the audience. 
• Sites which have purchased and repurposed expired domains to boost search rankings of low-quality content. 

How can I avoid being impacted by Google updates? 

As with any Google update, following these simple steps will ensure you are in the best position to weather changes. 

1. Talk to your agency or internal team regarding their content strategy. 

2. Ensure your content is relevant and genuinely answers users’ questions and intent. 

3. If you are carrying out any outreach activity, make sure you review the sites you are looking to partner with—does it feel spammy? Is the site relevant to your audience, or is there cross-relevance? 

4. Carry out a URL performance review. This will highlight any weak, dead, or underperforming content that you can then optimise, combine, or remove.  

5. If you are using AI to generate content, ensure a human has reviewed it and that it adds value to your audience. 

6. Review the frequency and quantity of new content being published. Can it be streamlined? is it going to add value? Do you need to publish so much so quickly? 

If you are one of our SEO clients, our team already follows these brief guidelines—plus many more—when creating content. So you can rest assured that you are in safe hands, but this doesn’t mean total protection.  

As this update has just been rolled out and is likely to take a couple of weeks to complete, our approach, as with any Google update, is to [insert quirky British wartime phrase] keep calm and carry on. 

If you are not one of our clients and would like us to review your content or any manual actions you may have received, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and book an SEO consultation.