Google has announced that it has officially completed the major core update for March 2024. This completes a process in which we have seen major fluctuations in the last 1 month and ranking losses throughout the update.
Google March 2024 Update
Announced on March 5, the core algorithm update was completed on April 19, with the official completion and data announced in late April. It was also announced as a footnote that unlike previous routine core refreshes, this time the algorithm update was more complex.
Update documentation is available here.
In line with the observations of professionals in the industry, it is written in the forums that some websites have lost more than 60% of their organic search traffic. At the same time, hundreds of sites allegedly violating google guidelines have been removed from the index.
Handling the update as an SEO professional
In its official guidelines, Google actually shares with us what criteria it looks for when targeting link spam and manipulation attempts. After each algorithm update, I am of a school that finds the reactions as if a law has changed somewhat meaningless and exaggerated. For this reason, I would like to share my own comments on the following articles and share my own opinions on these issues with you here.
- Creating “low value content” to gather manipulative links and inflate rankings.
- Links, including outbound links, aimed at artificially boosting the rankings of sites.
- “Re-use” of expired domains with completely different content for search visibility.
If you follow the Google Algorithm updates chronologically from top to bottom, you will actually reach the following data. Google is making adjustments to its own structure in order to maintain the quality of the search experience service it offers. Looking at Google updates from this structure, there are essentially no major changes in the attention points in the daily life of the SEO expert. However, due to such major effects, our meticulousness in some of our strategies can make greater contributions than before.
In the updated guidelines, there is a cautionary warning.
Any link that is intended to alter Google Search results is considered link spam. This includes any action that alters links to or from your site
John Mueller advises against making rapid changes while the major update is in progress, and states that experts can proactively find solutions to the fluctuating traffic caused by the update. In fact, there is a subtle line in his statement here that catches my attention, “The goal is not to make changes only for search engines, right?” There are actually quite big details in the subtext of the sentence he uses.
Update on connection quality
After the update we have seen significant traffic changes, the biggest change being that the role of links in determining a website’s ranking has been greatly reduced. The definition of “important” in the phrase “an important factor in determining relevance” has been removed and links have become a factor. This thesis has now been proven regarding the use of links, which was previously argued to have a diminishing role among the metrics that determine ranking.
As a result, it seems that it will now be left behind to make large investments in determining long-term investments and strategies that support our optimization and seo performance with the links we give to our keywords. Google now gives much more importance to website content within the scope of EEAT. In fact, it is not the right definition, we can say that it is not giving more importance, but removing links from reference points while giving importance.
Therefore, my humble opinion for SEO experts in this article will be to focus on the content of their websites and make updates here. In fact, if there are backlink articles that we have previously obtained good traffic, I think we can overhaul the content on our website, taking into account the traffic queries received by that site.
March 2024 Update Feedback form
Google also created a feedback form after the update. You can access the form here. If there is a problem you notice after the update, you can create a notification via the form here until May 31. It is shared that the data from the forms here may have an impact on future updates, even if it does not enable editing for websites and queries.
As a result, what should SEO experts pay attention to after the update?
Attention points I can recommend for your seo performance after the March 2024 update;
- We need to focus on improving the quality of the content. You can focus on queries such as how much you can respond to the queries of our target audience and expand the content of your site.
- You can reduce your backlink investments for a while, my advice here is that if there are important resources such as magazines, websites that stand out in your industry for backlinks, if your target audience is trying to access information from here, you can work to find your content here.
- The PR efforts of traditional marketing will still have an impact on you, but this impact will only feed your rankings from the experience of organic visits to your website from these sources. I can explain what I mean here in more detail later.
- If you have tried tricks other than basic seo skills that you believe will provide spam or advantage on your site, it is useful to fix them.
- It is useful to build your forward-looking content strategies to stand out in points such as user experience, product promotion, sectoral expertise by favoring your marketing performance as much as possible.
- With a google update every day, we are going through periods when the dynamics of traditional marketing have more impact on digital marketing. In fact, while this brings EEAT to the forefront, it also reminds us of the basic rules that should not be forgotten. No matter how much the digital world expands our possibilities, consumer behavior remains traditional. I think google is pushing us towards periods when we should try less to achieve results through engineering, leaving the marketing principles, which is our main step, in the background.
Good luck to you all.