Unfor­tu­nate­ly for us all, SEO is not a ‘one and done’ kind of affair.

Though a rig­or­ous update of your web­site’s off and on-page ele­ments will get you ahead, SEO suc­cess is earned with a con­sis­tent effort.

While that means review­ing key­word data, stay­ing on top of trends, and acquir­ing a cat­a­logue of back­links, it also requires an under­stand­ing of Google algo­rithm updates.

Google makes thou­sands of small changes to its algo­rithm every year, how­ev­er, a hand­ful of times it will be a sig­nif­i­cant change. The search engine will adapt and intro­duce new rank­ing fac­tors, which can huge­ly affect the search results – to the dis­may of count­less busi­ness­es every time!

To stay on your SEO A‑game, you must become acquaint­ed with these algo­rithm changes, and learn about new ones when they arise. This arti­cle will go through the most rel­e­vant ones, going back­wards from May 2024 to Octo­ber 2023, describ­ing the changes and their impli­ca­tions for your SEO strategies.

By under­stand­ing Google’s most recent pref­er­ences, you can opti­mise your SEO and con­tent in the most rel­e­vant way.

Let’s dive in.

6th May 2024: site reputation abuse

The problem:

This most recent update address­es the prob­lem of site rep­u­ta­tion abuse, prov­ing Google’s com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing val­ue for users and that even the most rep­utable web­sites will be scrutinised.

Site rep­u­ta­tion abuse occurs when a mar­keter uses anoth­er rep­utable web­site to host con­tent, pri­mar­i­ly to lever­age the host’s search engine rank­ings. This method, col­lo­qui­al­ly known as “par­a­site SEO,” is a mis­nomer since both par­ties typ­i­cal­ly con­sent to this arrange­ment willingly.

Google’s prob­lem with this is that the third-par­ty con­tent is pub­lished with min­i­mal or no input from the pri­ma­ry site own­er, and the main intent is to manip­u­late search rank­ings by exploit­ing the host site’s estab­lished cred­i­bil­i­ty. This includes var­i­ous forms of third-par­ty con­tent such as spon­sored posts, adver­tise­ments, or part­ner con­tent that gen­er­al­ly lacks rel­e­vance to the host’s main objectives/purposes or is pro­duced with­out sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment from the host.

And it’s not small-fry mar­keters who are get­ting rep­ri­mand­ed – many promi­nent brands utilise this approach to pro­mote their products.

The solution:

Cur­rent­ly, this pol­i­cy is being enforced man­u­al­ly, with Google staff phys­i­cal­ly trawl­ing through web­sites to deter­mine whether they’re in vio­la­tion of the new guide­lines. Guilty sites could be man­u­al­ly removed from Google’s search index, but the process isn’t yet ready to be hand­ed over to Google’s bots.

The man­u­al phase of check­ing sites will ensure guilty sites can be accu­rate­ly iden­ti­fied when the job is even­tu­al­ly automated.

The implications for your strategy:

To avoid being caught out in this update, con­sid­er remov­ing con­tent that lacks sub­stan­tial evi­dence of direct prod­uct inter­ac­tion. Things like orig­i­nal pho­tos and mea­sure­ments are pre­ferred. If you do have third-par­ty con­tent on your web­site, make sure to review it thor­ough­ly and that it’s not mere­ly there for SEO pur­pos­es – but for user value.

5th March 2024: core and spam updates

The problem:

The updates in March this year focused on com­bat­ing scaled con­tent abuse. This is when con­tent is mass-pro­duced to manip­u­late the SERPs. The updates also tar­get­ed the abuse of expired domains – when mar­keters repur­pose them to enhance the rank­ing of low-qual­i­ty content.

The solution:

This update inten­si­fied efforts that have been ongo­ing since 2022 – efforts to sup­press unhelp­ful and repet­i­tive con­tent. By enhanc­ing its algo­rith­mic func­tions, Google has been able to com­bat spam bet­ter than before. Improve­ments to its core rank­ing sys­tems have allowed Google to spot and pri­ori­tise orig­i­nal con­tent and by tack­ling low-qual­i­ty and repet­i­tive con­tent, Google reit­er­ates its empha­sis on pro­vid­ing gen­uine­ly help­ful search results.

Google has also updat­ed its spam poli­cies, which now more aggres­sive­ly fil­ter out the low­est-qual­i­ty con­tent, such as repur­posed expired domains and decep­tive obit­u­ary pages used for spamming.

The implications for your strategy:

Since this update, the bar for con­tent qual­i­ty has been high­er. Sites that gen­er­ate con­tent just for search engine rank­ings (rather than user val­ue) will see a decline in their search vis­i­bil­i­ty. So, focus­ing on user engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion is crucial.

You should focus on cre­at­ing unique, valu­able con­tent that address­es the needs of your audi­ence rather than sim­ply tar­get­ing spe­cif­ic search queries. This shift under­scores the impor­tance of con­tent qual­i­ty over quantity.

This update made it vital that web­sites review any dubi­ous con­tent strate­gies and stop using out­dat­ed tac­tics. For exam­ple, key­word stuff­ing, con­tent repli­ca­tion, and auto­mat­ed con­tent gen­er­a­tion are now eas­i­ly detected.

October and November 2023: doubled efforts for quality

The problem:

Last year, Google released sev­er­al updates close togeth­er across Octo­ber and Novem­ber. The main focus was to address the prob­lem of per­sis­tent low-qual­i­ty, irrel­e­vant, and untrust­wor­thy con­tent in the SERPs.

Though these goals have been Google’s focus for years, its meth­ods for detect­ing such con­tent and dis­tin­guish­ing it from high­er-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al aren’t perfect.

These updates were part of an effort to improve the search engine’s abil­i­ty to eval­u­ate and rank con­tent effec­tive­ly, espe­cial­ly focus­ing on remov­ing spam and ensur­ing that high-qual­i­ty, help­ful con­tent is more visible.

Part of these efforts were focused on broad­en­ing spam detec­tion across mul­ti­ple lan­guages and types of spam, includ­ing cloak­ing and auto-gen­er­at­ed content.

The solution:

By enhanc­ing its algo­rith­mic assess­ment capa­bil­i­ties, this update enabled Google to bet­ter detect the qual­i­ties of ‘EEAT’ in con­tent (Expe­ri­ence, Exper­tise, Author­i­ta­tive­ness, and Trust­wor­thi­ness). This then allowed the search engine to bet­ter pro­mote high-qual­i­ty, infor­ma­tive, and trust­wor­thy content.

Part of these updates also favoured Local SEO, improv­ing the expe­ri­ences of users need­ing phys­i­cal prox­im­i­ty to businesses.

The implications for your strategy:

This update requires your SEO strat­e­gy to take a user-cen­tred approach. Con­sid­er the following:

• Focus on the qual­i­ty and depth of your infor­ma­tion, refer­ring to sources.
• Improve your web­site’s mobile friendliness.
• Cut down page speed load­ing times.
• Ensure your web­site’s secu­ri­ty is watertight.
• Cater to your local audience.
• Grow a back­link pro­file with web­sites that make sense (i.e., that share your busi­ness’s val­ues or niche).

Final thoughts

The con­tin­u­ous updates to Google’s search algo­rithms and spam poli­cies reg­u­lar­ly rede­fine the SEO play­ing field. Learn­ing about these updates and their require­ments is an essen­tial part of opti­mis­ing your web­site – as much as all the oth­er SEO best prac­tices.

Stay­ing ahead means adapt­ing swift­ly to these changes and accept­ing that SEO strat­e­gy is an ongo­ing commitment.