Google’s March 2024 Core Update and New Spam Policies Explained

In March 2024 Google announced a broad core update together with new spam policies. The stated goal was to reduce unhelpful, unoriginal content in search results.

What Google said it was targeting

Google described the update as an improvement to its ranking systems so that results show less content that seems created to attract clicks rather than to help people. It also updated its spam policies to address three abuses specifically.

The three spam policy areas

• Scaled content abuse: producing many pages, by any method, mainly to rank rather than to help users.
• Site reputation abuse: hosting low-quality third-party content on a trusted site to borrow its ranking power.
• Expired domain abuse: buying old domains to publish content of little value.

What to check on your own site

• Do your pages offer something a reader cannot find elsewhere?
• Is it clear who writes your content and why they are qualified?
• Are there thin or near-duplicate pages you could merge or remove?
• Do you publish third-party content that has little to do with your expertise?

Do not panic-edit

Rankings often move during an update. Wait until it finishes rolling out, compare your data in Search Console and then make thoughtful improvements. Quality work done consistently is the safest long-term strategy.