August 2024 core update

Aug. 15

• Took into account feedback following the September 2023 helpful content update, negatively impacting many small and independent publishers.
  
• Google updated its help page, including more in-depth guidance for those who may see changes after an update.
• Some sites hit by the September 2023 helpful content update saw some improvement, but not full recoveries.
• Rollout is expected to take about a month.

Deepfake ranking system update

July 31

• Updated its ranking system to help ensure deepfake content does not rank highly in Google Search.
  
• Google aims to show “surface high-quality, non-explicit content — like relevant news articles — when it’s available” instead of deepfakes.

June 2024 spam update

June 20

It's a general and broad spam update.

Rollout completed June 27 (7 days).

Site reputation abuse

May 6

• Google said third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner would be considered spam—for example, a third party publishing payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website.
  
• Some SEOs refer to this practice as “parasite SEO.”
• Google pre-announced this update as part of its rollout of the March 2024 core update and spam updates (March 5).
• Google will take both automated and manual actions. As far as we know, Google never launched this algorithmically.

March 2024 core update

March 5

• A more complex algorithm update, with multiple core systems getting updated and released, results in more fluctuations in rankings than a regular core update.
  
• Google said unhelpful content in Search would be reduced by 40%.
• The update will take up to a month to roll out.
• Google’s helpful content system was incorporated into its overall core ranking system.

March 2024 spam updates

March 5

• Scaled content abuse (producing content at scale to boost search rankings – whether with automation, people, or a combination) was classified as search spam.
  
• Expired domain abuse (buying expired domains and repurposing them with the “intention of boosting the search ranking of low-quality content”) was classified as spam.
• Google started taking action against these new types of spam through algorithmic spam systems and manual actions.

Rollout completed March 20 (14 days)