Hello everybody! I'm opening this thread to gather the latest on March 2024 Core and Spam updates, as well as manual actions: documentation, findings, impacted sites, etc. to serve as a reference to anybody navigating the updates.
​What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies
Google Unleashes Manual Actions Galore After Search Spam Policy Updates
​(An Analysis of) Google's March 2024 Core Update announcement
​Google March 2024 AI Content Manual Action Update - List of Deindexed Sites
These updates were needed...
Although in general, I dislike seeing overlapping Google's updates as it can make analysis harder in some scenarios, I understand the urgency of these releases given the state of the SERPs and how vocal not only the community but the media had been about the level of quality in Google's SERPs.
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I expect that we look back at them in the future as we do now to the Panda and Penguin updates, and is the end of many tactics that have worked for way too long to the detriment of users' experience and Websites that actually prioritize on delivering value and quality.
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If your content is helpful and high quality, you shouldn't worry...
No. your site is not going to be affected by Google's current updates "just because" you're leveraging "AI" for its content. If you're doing it with care and focusing on a high quality, helpful outcome, it shouldn't be the case. Google is targeting spammy, unhelpful, with little to no value content here.
​How the content is produced is not the issue. The issue is the quality and helpfulness of the content. This has been clearly specified in Google content quality guidelines, here and here.​If you make substantial use of AI for your content, besides ensuring their quality, originality and helpfulness with expert human edition, it's also important to disclose its use.
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Finally, if you want to ensure the quality of your content here are a couple of resources I've created that can help:
After closely monitoring the effects of these updates and conducting extensive research, it's evident that the majority of those affected or heavily impacted were found to have engaged in link building practices that might have violated Google guidelines, followed by issues related to content quality.
In some cases, its strange to read or hear that they were also impacted by following the highest guidelines.