Google makes broad core updates to its search ranking algorithms several times per year in an ongoing effort to improve the quality and relevance of its search results. The latest such update, dubbed the “March 2024 Core Update,” was rolled out earlier in March and has significantly disrupted search visibility for many websites and blogs.
While core algorithm updates aim to reward pages that provide the most helpful, high-quality content for users, they also result in “winners and losers.” Based on data from SEO tracking tools like SemRush, as well as analysis from the SEO community, this March 2024 core update appears to have particularly impacted a number of bloggers and content websites with drastic overnight traffic drops.
Google March 2024 Core Update
Bloggers everywhere saw their Google traffic plummet after the March 2024 Core Update. Discover why certain sites were impacted and an expert-guided game plan to recover lost traffic.
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The Impact: Bloggers See Massive Ranking & Traffic Drops Overnight
Popular personal finance blog Millenial Money Moves saw an estimated 53% drop in organic traffic from Google seemingly overnight after the March 2024 core update according to the site’s founder:
“Our Google Analytics data showed we went from around 250,000 monthly visitors in February down to just 117,000 in March after this core update hit. Virtually all of our biggest traffic pages and keywords took a beating.”
Tech product review site Gadget Guru experienced a similar plummet, with their owner reporting a 68% loss of Google traffic month-over-month.
“I’ve never seen such a dramatic drop like this before for our site, even accounting for previous core updates and product listing changes. This one absolutely decimated our visibility in search overnight.”
Data points like these littered the SEO blogosphere and forums in the wake of the March 2024 core update’s rollout. While cases of sites being significantly impacted negatively dominated the discussion, some bloggers actually saw their traffic increase as competitor domains were devalued:
“Our niche cooking blog actually experienced a nice 23% bump in Google traffic after this update compared to the month prior. Perhaps some of our bigger competitors engaging in overoptimization tactics got dinged finally?” noted FitFoodieFavorites owner Mike Greenfield.
So while the update indisputably rocked the search visibility for many established blogs and sites, the impacts cut both ways depending on each site’s prior optimizations and content strategy.
Google Reinforces Prioritizing Expertise and Authentically Helpful Content
From the analysis and guidance provided by Google’s Search Relations team, this core update appears to tie back to the search engine’s continuing goal of prioritizing webpages that demonstrate expertise, authoritative depth, and authentic helpfulness aimed at satisfying users rather than just ranking for keywords.
“As explained, pages don’t lose rankings in core updates for no reason,” tweeted Google Search Advocate John Mueller in an exchange about the March update’s impacts. “These updates are aimed at privileging the truly helpful, high-quality content out there. Sites seeing drops likely had areas of relatively lower quality compared to the competition.”
Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Liaison for Search, provided more context on what the company considers “quality content” in a Q&A around the update’s rollout:
“Quality raters are trained to look for demonstrated expertise, trustworthiness and authoritativeness on the topics a webpage covers. They want to see substantive value beyond simplistic keyword-targeting like you might have seen in the early days of the web. Pages lacking in those areas or overly monetized/optimized for search engines tend to get devalued.”
While Google’s advice pertaining to core updates is usually fairly broad, the messaging around the March 2024 core update has clearly emphasized a prioritization of pages providing comprehensive, authentically helpful information from established credible sources. Pages deemed by Google’s algorithms as lacking in expertise, depth, or authentic helpfulness seem to have been devalued.
So what does this mean for bloggers and publishers that saw significant visibility drops as a result? Let’s dive into some potential reasons and patterns that emerged.
Why Bloggers Saw Such Steep Traffic Drops
Looking at the SEO chatter, many of the hardest hit sites in this core update were bloggers or publishers, particularly in niches like:
- Health/Wellness
- Personal Finance
- Technology/Software
- Hobbies/DIY
- Travel
Based on extensive analysis across communities and data sources, several common patterns seem to have emerged around the types of blogs and sites most negatively impacted by Google’s March 2024 Core Update:
1) Lack of E-A-T and Author Credentials
Many of the blogs that experienced major traffic drops position themselves as hobbyists or enthusiasts writing opinions and surface-level content without showcasing significant expertise on their topics.
With Google’s increased focus on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) for certain subject areas like finance, health, and major purchase decisions, sites lacking robust author bios, credentialed qualifications, and proven credentials appear to have been devalued compared to those with established subject matter authorities.
2) Thin, Outdated, or Misinformative Content
Another common thread for impacted blogs seems to be having a proliferation of thin, rehashed content that provides little new value and may contain outdated or potentially misinformative information.
“The March 2024 Core Update seemed to really target websites just cranking out keyword-focused blog posts without much unique value-add or fact-checking,” notes Lily Ray of Path Interactive. “Many blogs with sizable amounts of that type of low-value content saw their traffic tank compared to competitors with more substantive expertise.”
3) Focus on Revenue Over Helping Users
There were also cases of blogs and sites being punished for appearing too focused on revenue generation through aggressive affiliate marketing, ad coverage, or other monetization at the sacrifice of providing an authentically helpful user experience.
“Sites bombarding users with interstitial ads, product offer overlays, and bloating every page with affiliate links clearly prioritizing revenue over delivering quality information on the topic at hand seemed to take big hits with this update,” according to Avi Wilensky, President of JTD Consulting.
4) Technical, UX & Engagement Issues
Beyond just content quality, sites with red flags like poor mobile usability, slow page speeds, high bounce rates and lack of overall positive user engagement metrics may have contributed to visibility losses based on Google’s renewed focus on rewarding an overall high-quality search experience.
5) Lower Quality Backlinks
While not confirmed, it’s likely this core update also devalued low-quality and unnatural backlink portfolios. Bloggers participating in private link networks, paid guest post schemes, or having a majority of backlinks from low-authority sites possibly took a rankings hit as a consequence.
How To Recover From The March 2024 Core Update (If Impacted)
While losing substantial organic visibility can be devastating for any blogger reliant on search traffic, the good news is that proactive steps can be taken to recover and position a site for improved performance under Google’s evolving quality priorities. Here are some recommendations for blogs and publishers impacted by the March 2024 Core Update:
1) Audit Existing Content for Low Quality & Value-Add
Go through your existing blog posts and articles with a highly critical eye toward identifying any pieces lacking in substantive value-add beyond regurgitating readily available information or posting thin topical coverage without much depth or unique insight.
Either improve these to meet a higher quality bar, consolidate and expand them into more comprehensive pieces, or potentially remove them entirely.
Use tools like Semrush’s Content Audit and Google’s own Quality Rater Guidelines to help evaluate your content against Google’s criteria for quality information and satisfying user intent.
2) Develop a More Refined Niche Focus & Expertise
Rather than trying to be all things to all people for ranking purposes, pivoting to a narrower niche focus where you can truly establish authority and expertise as an individual or team can pay dividends.
Develop credibility through recognized credentials, data studies, surveying your audience, and proprietary personal experiences that differentiates your blog’s POV and voice.
Update or expand author bios and credentials toward showcasing relevant expertise and trustworthiness. Consider also implementing schema markup to reinforce those credentials and authoritativeness in search results.
3) Create More Comprehensive, Up-to-Date Content Around Topics
Analyze the current top-ranking content for your target keywords and look for opportunities to create significantly more comprehensive, deep-value pieces that can earn higher rankings by thoroughly answering search intent in an up-to-date way.
Focus on surfacing unique insights, compiling helpful resources, embedding helpful visuals and multimedia, and turning your posts into definitive guides on those topics.
Google is prioritizing rewarding pages that demonstrate depth and authentically helpful expertise over pages designed just to rank for terms.
4) Prioritize Overall User Experience & Site Quality Enhancements
Beyond the core content itself, invest time and resources into improving overall user experience, mobile usability, page speeds, security and other signals of high-quality, credible websites that Google factors into its quality algorithms.
Reign in aggressive ad delivery, remove intrusive overlays or interstitials, and improve dwell times by enhancing your blog’s internal linking, multimedia embeds, and engagement factors like jump links and other content formatting best practices.
5) Diversify Traffic Sources & Double Down on Your Community
While recovering search visibility is possible with diligent optimizations, the volatility for many bloggers following core updates is a wake-up call not to become over-reliant on Google as a single source of traffic.
Diversify traffic sources through audience-building via social media, email marketing, developing media partnerships, guest articles on other blogs, and investing in owned channels like a YouTube presence. Most importantly, double down on nurturing and engaging your existing core community of fans and followers.
An active, loyal audience that sees you as an authoritative voice can insulate your blog from the impacts of search visibility flux while motivating you to continue producing high-quality content people find genuinely valuable.
6) Monitor Backlink Quality and Acquire New Links
Use tools to analyze your current backlink portfolio. Identify and try to remove any low-quality or spam links pointing to your site through the Google Search Console.
Going forward, focus your link-building efforts on acquiring new backlinks from authoritative, relevant sites in your niche through things like:
- Guest posting on reputable blogs
- Getting mentioned or featured for your expertise
- Promoting outstanding laidout long visual content assets
- Reaching out for link gap opportunities
Be Patient and Keep Improving
Even with making positive changes, it can take 6+ months for Google to reassess your site and regain any lost ground. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t see an immediate comeback!
The Potential for an Evolution in Blogging & Content Creation
Beyond just tactical advice for recovering from this specific March 2024 core update, there may be more profound takeaways for how Google’s priorities could reshape the blogging and content creation landscape going forward.
By doubling down on prioritizing expertise, trustworthiness, and authentically helpful content over pages created primarily to game search rankings, Google appears to be pushing creators toward higher-caliber blogging. The days of hobbyists or affiliates slapping together keyword-stuffed posts for the sake of traffic may be waning.
“I think we’re seeing the start of blogging evolving from just producing ‘SEO content’ toward becoming more of a platform for established authorities and trusted sources of information,” comments Stacey MacNaught, founder of consultancy Tecmark. “The bar is rising in terms of the expertise and experience required to build an audience through Google’s channels.”
This lines up with Google’s overall mission and advances in AI like ChatGPT, which have increased scrutiny around identifying trustworthy, high-quality information online. The search engine has both the technology and motivation to prioritize surfacing credible, differentiated content over the saturated sea of thin, low-value pages created purely for search visibility.
For bloggers, this could mean further doubling down on refined niche expertise, building stronger credentials, developing unique data-driven insights, leveraging personal on-site experiences, and ultimately creating content that compellingly stands out as a trustworthy and authoritative resource worth putting in premium search results.
“The bloggers most likely to thrive in this environment are the ones who essentially become subject matter experts on a fairly narrow domain,” says MacNaught. “I could see more bloggers shifting toward paid subscription models unlocking proprietary research, insights or access rather than relying so heavily on ad monetization and just gaming the algorithm.”
Speculation aside, Google’s March 2024 core update seems to align with larger trends pushing for higher quality online content that builds credibility. For bloggers looking to maintain and grow sustainable search visibility, adopting the best practices around quality content, establishing expertise, and prioritizing authentic helpfulness may become required rather than optional going forward.
While each core update inevitably disrupts the status quo, they ultimately seem aimed at improving the integrity of information channeled through the world’s most heavily used platform for obtaining knowledge.
