Whether or not you panic about Google’s algorithm updates tends to hinge on what type of SEO work you do. If you’re trying to game the system, you might be more worried than if you’ve got a clear conscience that everything is done with the right intentions (i.e. creating helpful content for people, not overly-optimised, regurgitated copy for search engines).
I don’t mean to be flippant, we as an agency, of course, always pay attention to these announcements, but you won’t find any big red ‘panic’ button here. That said, there seems to be more written about this update than normal so I thought I’d tackle what’s occurring.
What is the latest core update all about?
It was probably no surprise to anyone that Collins’ 2023 word of the year was AI, as it felt like that was the only topic that mattered in the tech world, and at times, the world at large. While AI is being applied to almost every field, and in many cases, hugely successfully, it is open to abuse in terms of content creation. And that is what has put the scoobies up many people working in SEO today. More on that later…
Google stated that this latest update is more complex than its normal updates and involves changes to multiple systems. It also said that it marks an evolution in how it identifies the helpfulness of content’.
If it works, the update will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by as much as 40% – quite an ambitious aim.
Is a new core update needed?
German researchers from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence would argue yes. They claimed that Google’s search results have been going downhill and that ‘a torrent of low-quality content, especially for product search, keeps drowning any kind of useful information in search results’.
Returning to the subject of AI, it is now ridiculously easy to churn out low-quality content by using AI and this update is likely aimed at reducing the amount of poorly written, unoriginal, and largely unhelpful content that has been creeping into SEO practice. Google’s own explanation is not quite this direct but that is the summation being made by many.
To an extent, Google has been hoisted by its own petard, in that those working in SEO have always tried to produce content in response to relevant and high-traffic keywords and trying to undertake this in the most efficient way possible isn’t exactly a crime. It does rather feel that Google is on a back foot with this update but clearly the extent of this lack-lustre content is perplexing the giant and steps needed to be taken.
How this unravels is yet to be seen. It may be possible for Google to determine the difference between one site that has exclusively and extensively used AI and another which is entirely crafted by people and for people, but there is a whole raft of in-betweens which will not yet know where Google’s sword will fall. Given the extent of the noise on this new update, I’m guessing that there are rather a lot operating in these murky waters.
The second part of the update is aimed at reducing spam tactics – namely expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, and site reputation abuse. (More on those next week if you’re interested.) The deadline for adhering to the new spam policies is 5 May so you have been warned.
Such is the scale of this whole update, Google says it will take a month for the rollout to complete.
So buckle up everyone. Even if your site is clean as a whistle, if those around you benefit from this update or face a search penalty or worse, a manual action, there is likely to be plenty of volatility in search results and rankings. It might be a bumpy ride for a few months at least.
