March 2024 Spam updates
Google also announced the release of new spam updates, which it is calling the March 2024 spam update, and spam policy updates to complement the release of the March 2024 core update. Two of these spam updates will result in both automated and manual actions this week. The site reputation abuse spam update will go into effect in two months from now, on May 5, 2024
Scaled content abuse search spam
The scaled content abuse search spam is an update to the old “spammy automatically-generated content” policy that now goes beyond just “spammy auto-generated content” and is now inclusive of any method of producing content at scale for the purpose of ranking in search.
Google said producing content at scale to boost search rankings — whether with automation, people or a combination — is against its guidelines. “This will allow us to take action on more types of content with little to no value created at scale, like pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but fail to deliver helpful content,” Google wrote.
What are examples of pages that pretend to have answers but fail to deliver? Tucker explained that those are the pages that start off by stating it will answer your question, lead you on with low-quality content, and never end up giving you the answer to your questions.
“Our long-standing spam policy has been that use of automation, including generative AI, is spam if the primary purpose is manipulating ranking in Search results. The updated policy is in the same spirit of our previous policy and based on the same principle. It’s been expanded to account for more sophisticated scaled content creation methods where it isn’t always clear whether low quality content was created purely through automation,” Nelson wrote. “Our new policy is meant to help people focus more clearly on the idea that producing content at scale is abusive if done for the purpose of manipulating search rankings and that this applies whether automation or humans are involved,” he added.
Google will start to take action against scaled content abuse both through algorithmic spam systems and manual actions this week.
Expired domain abuse now considered spam
“Expired domain abuse” — the practice of buying expired domains and repurposing them with the “intention of boosting the search ranking of low-quality content” — is now considered spam, Tucker said. This technique may try to trick users to thinking new content on a domain is part of the old site, when it may not be.
This is a specific and clear message to content creators to not purchase expired domains with the intent of repurposing those domains with the goal of ranking in Google Search.
Google will start to take action against expired domain abuse both through algorithmic spam systems and manual actions this week.
Site reputation abuse (aka Parasite SEO) is spam too
Google has a new policy for “site reputation abuse,” some SEOs have been calling it “
Parasite SEO,” where third party sites host low-quality content provided by third-parties to piggy back on the ranking power of those third party websites. Google explained, “a third party might publish payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website to gain ranking benets from the site.”
“Such content ranking highly in Search can confuse or mislead visitors who may have vastly different expectations for the content on a given website,” Google added.
This new policy clarifies that “third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner to be spam.” But this new policy doesn’t consider all third-party content to be a violation. Google said “only that which is hosted without close oversight and which is intended to manipulate Search rankings.” Google offered this example: “Many publications host advertising content that is intended for their regular readers, rather than to primarily manipulate Search rankings. Sometimes called ‘native advertising’ or ‘advertorial,’ this kind of content typically wouldn’t confuse regular readers of the publication when they find it on the publisher’s site directly or when arriving at it from Google’s search results.”
Google said they are giving two month advance notice of this policy and will start to take both automated and manual actions on this abuse in two months. The specific date is May 5, 2024.
