The Google Core Update March 2024 was one of the biggest hitters since 2011’s Panda and 2012’s Penguin. Hundreds of websites suffered rankings drops, but for some the fallout was far more serious, being deindexed altogether.
Our advice as the update was rolling out was to sit tight and wait for it to complete. Then pause and see how the dust settled before taking any drastic action.
And now the time has come. The update, which went on for 45 days, finished on 19th April, although Google didn’t announce it was all done until a week later.
Google March 2024 Core Update – a Quick Recap
The March 2024 Core Update, and its simultaneous spam update, aimed to tackle spam and low quality content. It saw Google targeting web pages they considered unoriginal and unhelpful, that delivered a poor user experience, or that were obviously generated for search engines as opposed to humans.
Originally, Google predicted the updates would reduce low quality and unhelpful content by 40%. But now it believes it’s closer to 45%. Here’s what they had to say:
“The updates led to larger quality improvements than we originally thought – you’ll now see 45% less low quality, unoriginal content in search results, versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.”
Google is focused on delivering original, high quality content with added value. This is the type of content it is now prioritising via the March updates. It’s also tackling manipulative SEO tactics that exploit search engine algorithms and provide a poor user experience.
What to do if your site was hit by the March Core Update?
If your site was one of the many that suffered reduced organic traffic or lost search visibility as a result of the Google March Core Update, we have some suggestions for you by way of a Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy.
Your strategy will need to involve:
- Ascertaining what went wrong
- Fixing any mistakes you’ve made
- Assuring Google you can be trusted
Let’s take it step by step:
Step 1: Impact Assessment
The first step is to analyse the extent of the negative impact of the update on your website’s visibility in search, and its organic rankings.
Check your rankings for your target keywords, and make a list of the pages that have been affected.
To do this, you can analyse your website’s performance data using Google Search Console.
The performance data you look at might include:
- Average search position
- Page impressions
- Click-throughs
Consider:
- What’s changed?
- What have you lost compared to your pre-update situation?
When you’re in Search Console, you’ll also see any notifications about manual actions made against your site where your Core Web Vitals have fallen down. Take note of these, as they’ll need to be addressed.
Check:
- Page loading performance
- Interactivity levels
- Visual stability of pages
Once you’ve ascertained the extent of the Core Update on your website, you can start forming your Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy.
Step 2: Best Practice Review / Technical Audit
Your aim here is to identify why your site might have been targeted.
Check Google Search Essentials to make sure your website meets Google’s quality standards.
Home in on the sections that cover content quality, user experience and technical elements. Note any areas where you may have contravened the rules.
Carry out a content quality review. Ask:
- Is your content relevant to your audience and the type of information they’re specifically looking for?
- Is your content unique, or is it simply a rewrite of other sources?
- Does your content include personal insights and expert opinion that won’t be found elsewhere?
- Does it engage your audience? Does it command shares and comments?
Tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush will help you analyse content performance.
Conduct a technical SEO audit. Look at potential issues that may have earned you a black mark in terms of user experience.
These could be:
- Site speed
- Mobile friendliness
- Site crawlability and index-ability
You can use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights and Screaming Frog to help you with this task.
Step 3: Recovery Strategy
Now you know the extent of the damage, and are more informed about why it might have happened, you’re ready to develop your Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy.
You can look at your recovery strategy as a four stage process:
1. Technical Fixes
Getting the technical SEO elements of your website right is vital if you’re going to recover from any rankings drops following the March 2024 Google Core Update.
Anything that was highlighted as an area for improvement during your technical audit needs to be addressed.
This could include:
- Improving site speed
- Fixing broken links
- Optimising meta tags
- Compressing images
- Minimising bloated code
- Addressing layout shifts
Basically, you are looking to make sure your Core Web Vitals are in order, ensuring your website pages load quickly, improving interactivity and visual stability.
2. Content Restructure
Your content review will have flagged up areas for improvement. So now it’s time to update and optimise existing content so that it matches user and search intent, and delivers a positive, engaging experience for your audience.
Be ruthless. Run through each piece of content on your website. If it doesn’t match up to Google’s content quality guidelines, and you know in your heart of hearts that it’s not really hitting the mark with your audience, cull it.
Hit the delete button if your content isn’t:
- Original
- Helpful
- Well-researched
- Answering your audience’s questions
And if it is:
- Content designed to rank and draw clicks without answering queries
- Content that doesn’t meet search or user intent
- Content generated at scale
- User generated spam, scraped content or manufacturer-provided content
Your Google Search Console Search Performance Report will show you the pages that aren’t bringing valuable traffic or ranking for your target keywords. Those are the ones that will either need work, or should be consigned to trash.
3. User Experience Upgrade
Google favours websites that deliver a positive user experience.
So your next task as part of your Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy is to improve the user experience of your site.
This means ensuring:
- Your site navigation is easy to follow, and that visitors can find what they need without frustration
- Your site delivers a positive user experience across all device types, including – and especially – mobile
- No one has to wait around too long to download your web pages
- There are clearly marked calls to action so users know where to get what they want
- Hyperlinks are easy to differentiate from the rest of the page text
- Content is laid out clearly, with well-designed headings, short sentences and paragraphs and bullet points
4. Reinforce Authority
If your site has been penalised by the March 2024 Core Update, you’ll want to try and build bridges with Google. Showing them you are an authority in your niche area is one way to do this.
You can demonstrate authority by:
- Building high quality backlinks – one of Google’s most trusted ranking signals, backlinks help to build organic rankings. Web pages with large quantities of links obtained by sticking to Google’s Best Practice Guidelines carry authority, as well as generating referral traffic. So it’s well worth investing in building links. If you have acquired links via paid means or a partnership agreement, both of which Google frowns upon, then start work on getting rid of them (or take advice on doing so, as it’s not such a straightforward task if you’re unsure what you’re doing).
- Building your review profile – Google uses customer reviews to determine where a website should rank in the search engine results pages. It homes in on the likes of the regularity and recentness of the reviews, as well as their star rating and how regularly they are responded to. Be sure to have a process in place for capturing reviews, and go through existing feedback to make sure every comment left has a reply.
Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy – next steps
Although not every website was affected, the Google Core Update March 2024 left many website owners in turmoil with dropped rankings, or in some cases, loss of search visibility altogether.
The good news is that there is a way out. It may take time to recover, but there are tangible actions you can take to remedy the situation. And those actions will stand you in good stead for any future updates, because you will be working towards full compliance with Google’s best practice guidelines for content and user experience.
If you are unsure of your next move in terms of reinstating your organic search positions following the March 2024 Update, you are welcome to speak to the team at Figment for tailored advice on your Google Core Update March 2024 recovery strategy.
