Google announced a core web vitals update to its search algorithm to deliver a much better user experience. This update, one of the biggest Google has rolled out, focuses on reducing unhelpful and unoriginal content by 40%! That’s a major shift and it could impact the ranking of many websites.
This reduction will be achieved through three new policies, designed to combat spam tactics used to manipulate rankings. These include measures against expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, and site reputation abuse.
The update is ongoing and will continue throughout March. You might see more fluctuations in website rankings than usual due to the size of the update, but it should settle down once the update is complete. You can stay updated on the progress by checking Google’s Search Status Dashboard.
If you notice your website’s ranking continues to decline even after the update is finished, check out Google’s help page on creating helpful, reliable, and people-first content.
Google’s March Core Update: Hundreds of Websites Delisted for Spam Violations
The impact of this core web vitals update is already being felt, with hundreds of websites being removed from search results (deindexed) for violating Google’s new guidelines. Google has clarified that website owners affected by a manual spam penalty will be notified through their Search Console account and will have the opportunity to appeal the decision.
However, if you suspect your website’s ranking has taken a hit after the update and haven’t received any notification, you can always check your current ranking by googling “site:yourwebsite.com”.
Now, to avoid any potential issues, let’s take a closer look at each of these new spam policies and understand what they mean for website owners.
SERVICES
WordPress maintenance plans
We offer an easy way for agencies to guarantee ongoing support to their clients with our WordPress maintenance plans.
Is Using Expired Domains Bad for SEO?
The first policy in a new core update targets a tactic called “expired domain abuse.” This happens when website owners try to take advantage of an expired domain’s past reputation and search ranking. They do this by buying expired domains and filling them with low-quality content that doesn’t actually benefit users.
Google sees this as a deliberate attempt to cheat the system by parasitizing someone else’s past authority, rather than creating valuable content themselves. However, it’s important to note that using an expired domain name for a new website is perfectly acceptable, as long as the content you create is valuable and informative for users.
Google Core Web Vitals Update Targets “AI Content Farms”
The next policy tackles “scaled content abuse.” This refers to the practice of some website owners exploiting SEO by using AI automation to generate massive amounts of low-quality content.
Google is tightening its grip on this abusive behavior. Pandu Nayak Vice President of Google Search, says in an interview with The Verge, that the policy primarily targets sites that create thousands of low-quality articles a day. That type of content offers no real value to users, fails to answer popular search queries, and ultimately provides no benefit. A study by Originality.ai has shown that all websites penalized during this core web vitals update showed signs of large-scale AI-generated content.
SERVICES
Content Writing Services
Bring your content strategy to life with our content writing services. Our dedicated writers work closely with you.
New Update Punishes Websites Hosting Low-Quality Guest Posts
Site reputation abuse occurs when third-party content is published on a website with little to no involvement or oversight from the website owner. Typically, the goal of this content is to manipulate SEO rankings by leveraging the established reputation of the main website.
These third-party pages can take various forms, such as sponsored content, advertisements, partner pages, or anything else that falls outside the core purpose of the website. Often, this third-party content is unrelated to the website’s core purpose and offers no value to users.
This is exactly what Google aims to prevent with this core web vitals update. Even websites with excellent content can be penalized if they allow low-quality third-party content to flourish on their platform. To avoid blocking from Google Search, website owners have to pay close attention to any third-party content published on their site.
Google is giving website owners a 60-day grace period to clean up any site reputation abuse and remove any low-quality third-party content before it makes permanent ranking changes. The other two policies expired domain abuse and scaled content abuse, go into effect immediately.
For the moment, Google’s priorities remain clear: Regardless of whether the content is created by humans or AI, it rewards content that demonstrates Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
