“How did this happen?’’ is among the questions you might have at this point. Artificial intelligence, content, Google core updates and user experience all play a part in the solution.
Moreover, Google and I have both noticed a dramatic drop in the quality of search results since 2022. Spammy, unoriginal content that is either written badly by humans or created by AI engines has begun to take over the listings. In an attempt to combat the abundance of relevant or copycat content, Google has responded by releasing several significant updates. The most recent of these was Google’s Core Update from March 2024.
‘This core update is more complex than our usual core updates,’’ states Google. The main objectives of this update are to accomplish the following five goals:
- Reduce low-quality results
- Fight against spam in search
- Prevent scaled content abuse
- Stop site reputation abuse
- End expired domain abuse
While content quality is the primary focus of the first three goals, Google has recently faced significant challenges in achieving the third goal. With the use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, businesses can now easily produce large amounts of subpar content while deceiving the algorithm into believing it to be valuable. This is a condensed and easier version:
The quality of content is the focus of a recent Google update in 2024. Spam is defined as badly written, AI-generated human content that has few real benefits other than keywords. Google wants to remove 40% of irrelevant content . This strict policy may affect some non-spam content as the update is implemented over the next month.
Google Core Updates New Ranking System
To adapt to Google’s core updates, we need to understand their definition of “helpful’’ content. Since 2022, Google core update has aimed to rank content made for people, not search engines.
Here are helpful content updates, as follows:
- Quality: original, valuable, and shareable content. Proper grammar and style matter.
- Factual Accuracy: Correct information is crucial.
- Relevance: Content should match the audience’s needs and the website’s purpose.
Content made to rank higher, overly keyword-dense, or heavily automated is considered unhelpful.
EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a key concept for creating helpful content.
Experience, Expertise, Credibility, and Reliability (EEAT)
EEAT is a key element of Google’s search quality rating guidelines. Google trains its employees to rank the quality of content in search results using a system called ‘search quality rate.’’
Although it is not a component of the algorithm itself, it helps us understand what Google considers important when ranking websites.
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Experience (E)
Google values first hand experience. Content by people who know the topic well ranks higher. For example, a review from someone who has used a product will rank better than one from someone who hasn’t.
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Expertise (E)
Expertise is about professional competence, especially in fields like law, medicine, or safety. Google values certifications and evidence of qualifications. Additionally, credentials are important, but other proofs, like photos of a baker’s creations, also show expertise.
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Authoritativeness (A)
Google looks at the number of websites that share and link to your content. How many and what kind of backlinks your page has influences its ranking. Therefore, Google assesses your authority based on links from other users after you demonstrate your experience and knowledge.
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Trustworthiness (T)
Google users want information from trusted, human sources. Honesty, apparent policies, and easy-to-find contact information are some indicators of trustworthiness. Moreover, sites that hide ads, make false claims, or hide bad reviews will get low trust ratings from Google.
What Google Core Updates Means For AI Content Generation
Leading search engine optimizer Ian Nutall monitors 49,345 websites for indexation. He announced on X on Friday, March 8th, that 837 of those web pages had been deindexed.
This inflamed tensions even further because the SEO community was already uneasy due to the strange variations in search traffic this month.
Some days later, Nutall announced that 21 of those websites had been re indexed; therefore, during this month, other websites might also get re indexed.
All websites that Google penalized in March, according to a recent analysis, had a similarity.
Originality, the company behind the well-known AI content detector, ran a study of 79,000 websites this March. Out of these, 1,446 websites had a “manual action” applied to them.
When a Google employee manually penalizes a website by removing it completely from Google search (deindexing it), they are referring to this as a “manual action.”
Of these 1,446 websites, 100% had posts and content that was AI-generated, and 50% had 90%-100% of their posts AI-generated.
What Should You Do Next?
First, calm down and take a deep breath. Although Google Core updates can be irregular, things will eventually settle down.
According to Google, “If creators have been producing engaging content for people, there is nothing new or special they need to do.” You should not be concerned if your content is well-written and gets good rankings. Just keep following best practices and creating helpful content.
You might have to wait if your site is impacted. Ups and downs will occur until the update is finished.
But do not expect great outcomes if you have been using AI to create a lot of content quickly. Google is removing spam and poor-quality content from its platform.
Put people’s needs first when producing content. Make your website a great resource for answers for users by utilizing EEAT signals, which stand for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Google’s Core Update focuses on good content, relevancy, and trust. They want to fight spam and low-quality content, especially AI-generated stuff. To deal with this, make helpful content that shows expertise, authority, and trust.
Moreover, use real experience and skills and be honest to gain the trust of users and Google. Despite ranking changes, sticking to great content that helps people will help your website in the long run. So, visit Nettonics for more information about the latest Google updates in 2024.