Google announced on March 20th, 2024, that the March 2024 Spam Update is done rolling out, which started on March 5th.
The update took 15 days to complete.
Purpose: Google has finished rolling out its spam update, focusing on combating AI-generated content, misuse of expired domains, and abuse of authority.
Note:
Table of Contents
Official Announcement on Google March 2024 Spam Update Completion
Google officially confirmed the march 2024 spam update on its Google Search Status Dashboard.
Google wrote,
The rollout was complete as of March 20, 2024.”
Quick Facts on Google March 2024 Spam Update
- Title: Google March 2024 Spam Update
- Release Date: March 5, 2024
- Rollout Duration: Completed rolling out on March 20th.
- Global Update: It will impact all languages and regions.
- Targets: It will target scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse.
- Penalty: It penalizes spam techniques that are against Google’s spam policies.
Spam Update Rollout Completed
Google has introduced and implemented three new spam policies with this update:
scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse, and site reputation abuse.
Note: The first two policies have been implemented, but the site reputation abuse policy will come into effect in May.
Detailed Analysis of March 2024 Spam Update
A study conducted by Originality.ai revealed that all of the websites that were deindexed showed indications of 100% AI-generated content and with 50% of the sites having 90-100% of their posts created by AI.
However, it’s important to note that these manual actions are distinct from algorithmic demotions.
The fact is that manual actions are executed by human reviewers at Google and are accompanied by notifications in Search Console. On the other hand, algorithmic ranking updates, such as the March spam update, occur automatically and do not trigger notifications from Google.
Tracking Tools On March 2024 Spam Update:
Here’s the initial data from the tools (please note that it will take some time for this update to fully roll out).
Semrush:
SERPmetrics:
Accuranker:
Conclusion
Now when the spam update rollout has been done website owners and content creators have can start with adapting the new search landscape.
This will include auditng existing content, reworking on AI-generated content and emphasizing human creativity and editorial supervision.
While the SEO community keeps monitoring the impact of both updates, it’s obvious that Google remains committed to promoting original, high-value content and combating low-quality, spammy material.
We can expect to see the full impact of these updates in the coming weeks as the core update finishes rolling out and the search results stabilize with their new patterns.
