Yesterday Google announced their algorithm update for March of 2024.
There are A LOT of important takeaways from this initial announcement, and likely a lot more evolutions to come. With every algorithm update, it is best to monitor performance closely and let the data determine the right path forward – but there are definitely areas brands and website owners should consider:
- Google needed to do something for many reasons – and this is the first big step forward from months of rigorous testing and several algorithmic updates in Q4. It hasn’t been much of a secret that Google has been getting hammered for months (maybe years) for declining results in search, due to many websites and content pieces that were designed to game the system – and actually worked. It’s a big problem – because if Google can’t figure this out, audiences will continue to transition over to ChatGPT or GP-like services, which are only going to get better in time.
Some studies have suggested that Search traffic from Google as a referrer to websites could decline up to 25% by 2025 – in favor of AI driven answer engines, including the potential impact of Google’s SGE beta test.
- The PR behind this is not a coincidence. Google is aware of the bad publicity with search (not to mention Gemini, PMAX, GA4, among other things). On top of that, this is a call to creators who have accelerated “SPAM” type tactics (Low value programmatic SEO, “Parasite” SEO) and now the expectation that large amounts of AI-only built content will continue to flood their servers – that these tactics will not work in the long term. Google must be confident they’ve cracked the code on this – but we won’t know that for months. In less than 24 hours following the announcement, there has already been conversation across the SEO industry, via LinkedIn and X, reporting incidents of complete removal and de-indexing of low quality websites that were viewed as unhelpful and/or primarily built with AI.
- Back to AI: Upon reading this announcement it was immediately my first thought – because the data is telling us that. The Index reports across almost all enterprise websites we’ve evaluated over the last 6+ months are telling the same story: an increase of non-indexed URLs and steady decreases in indexed pages. AI for content strategy, ideation and some level of creation is certainly not a bad thing – when utilized correctly and vetted by a human expert. AI can act as another tool to get closer to user intent, conversational experience and knowledge input. Also, AI for low-impact tasks -- even in SEO -- should be embraced, tested and leveraged to focus more on high impact strategy or higher effort/reward focus areas.
Getting content crawled and indexed on Google will only get more difficult moving forward – and I personally welcome this change. Why?
- The idea of “higher quality”, “authoritative”, or “helpful” answers, content and experiences should remain core to Google’s mission. Will they be able to get rid of everything? Absolutely not. But their baseline of 40% reduction of pages in the index I view as a tangible target. Why? There is so much unhelpful or regurgitated content online, and to this day enterprise websites (in retail, publishing, others) still struggle to get their technical hygiene in order. This still leads to things like duplication, canonical issues and effective crawls from Google. Brands need to know the assets they have and if they’re working as hard as possible to increase brand presence, traffic and customer engagement. I also don’t view it much of a coincidence that Reddit is more present in Google results these days, as at times user comments are more informative and useful than AI generated answers. I also can’t wait to get a recipe without reading the history of chicken.
- Website + Page Experience: The topic of page experience, website performance and post-click experience is at the core of all our digital strategies, especially SEO. Will these things lead to improved organic rankings? Not directly. We know this because we tested it for years and Google has even confirmed CWV will not directly lead to organic ranking improvements. However, if Google is required to use more resources to get to the content of your pages, it can (and will likely) lead to a negative impact on performance. It’s also long proven poor page experience leads to lower engagement, conversion and return users.
- Technical Health of sites should continue to be prioritized: This is less about running audits and JIRA tickets. It’s more about how we are using technology to ensure we are producing the best possible experience for people and also Google. Prioritizing solutions that will drive the highest impact that correlates to how the landscape is evolving should remain the priority. Indexation, accessibility, how content renders, how page assets load – will always be critical to SEO and website performance. These issues will impact all channels that drive to the website experience.
There is still a lot more to unpack and much more to come with this announcement we’ve been waiting for. Google has said this will take time to fully roll out, given the “complexities” (a.k.a test and learn approaches) – but the patterns are consistent with many of the tests they launched at the end of Q4. Core Algorithm updates will remain the norm and will eventually be “always-on,” so we need to continue to monitor and remain proactive to stay ahead of these changes.
You can get the full text of Google's announcement here