On March 5th, Google announced yet another core algorithm update alongside three new spam policies. Announced via their main blog, the updates target scaled content, expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse.
What does that mean for you? We’ll discuss each of the three updates in more detail and provide insight into what this means for best practices from a content perspective.
It is no secret that Google has always prioritised the user and is constantly seeking ways to serve the best possible search results, so it is no surprise that Google is looking to reduce spam.
Google has always had problems with the quality of the SERPs (search engine results page), the search experience, and the originality of content, with people looking to “game” the system ever since the search engine’s conception in 1998.
So, why now? It is clear that the principles of this update are nothing new, and the SEO tactics at the heart of the update (matching the highest quality content with user search) are something Google has and always will be about.
What is clear, however, is that the generation of content (particularly low-quality content) is becoming increasingly difficult to police.
With the rise of AI content creation and the ease of content creation on a mass scale, it is clear that Google is wary of the dangers, limitations, and inaccuracies this content could have for them and their goal of delivering high-quality content to users.
To understand the latest Google update, we must break down the changes and define what this means for those in the world of SEO and Digital.
Scaled content abuse is manipulating Search by generating large amounts of unoriginal content that doesn’t help the user. Defined as content that provides little or no value for users, scaled content abuse will be considered spam, and Google will attack it.
It does not matter if this abuse of content is created manually, through AI, or a mix of the two; if it intends to manipulate the search, it will be considered spam.
An example of content that could be considered scaled content abuse would be pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but don’t deliver the answers effectively and with value.
The documentation from Google as to what constitutes scaled content abuse includes, but is not limited to:
If you have completed one of the actions above for content on your site, you should complete one of the following actions.
This section will explore the definition of expired domain abuse spam and examples of where this can occur.
Chris Nelson from the Google Search Quality team has explained that expired domain abuse is when “an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate Search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users.”
This is deemed an intentional search spam tactic and is not something that can accidentally be done. Typically employed by people who want to rank with low-value content by riding on a domain's success and past reputation.
If you recently purchased a domain and are worried about this impacting your performance, don’t worry. It is acceptable for people to purchase domain names to create a new, original site with high-quality content.
Some examples of expired domain abuse from Google’s policies include:
This section will discuss what site reputation abuse consists of, including examples.
Google has deemed site reputation abuse to be “when third-party pages are published with little or no first-party oversight or involvement.” As with the other updates, this refers to people trying to manipulate Search rankings by taking advantage of the first-party site’s ranking signals.
Site reputation abuse includes sponsored, advertising, partner, or other third-party pages independent of a host site’s main purpose. Many within the industry have been calling this Parasite SEO, and Google has been saying changes to spam tactics like this have been coming since November 2023.
The official help documentation from Google provides the following examples:
As this can be deemed a particularly grey area, the documentation also provides examples that are NOT considered site reputation abuse:
No, not at all. This is only considered spam or harmful if a site doesn’t have close oversight and is intended to manipulate Search. Many publications host advertising content designed for their regular readers. You will be fine if you have this sort of content on your site that won’t confuse regular readers when they find it on a publisher’s site or from Google search results.
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