Google announced on Tuesday that it has updated its search engine "so you see more useful information, and fewer results that feel made for search engines," the company wrote in a blog post. This simply means that Google will rank websites with original content rather than those designed and optimised solely for search engines with the March 2024 core update. As part of this change, the company has made "algorithmic enhancements" to its "core ranking systems" to ensure the ranking of useful content over unoriginal or duplicate content. Similarly, Google has also updated its spam policy, where the lowest quality content will be excluded from Google searches, including the repurposing of expired websites as spam repositories for traffic. Unhelpful websites with poor user experience, which could also include websites created for very specific search queries likely to take a hit with this update. According to the search engine giant, this update is likely to reduce low-quality and unoriginal content by 40 per cent. The company is also taking action on reputable websites that post low-quality content from third parties, and Google is offering a two-month window (until May 5) for such website owners to make necessary changes. These changes are likely to affect several website owners, especially those which have been purely optimised for search engines with duplicate content. For end-users, the March core update will ensure that they see more relevant and useful content that answers their queries. As generative AI-powered search engines are on the rise, Google's take is likely to reassure its users regarding how seriously Google takes its users.
