Google's War on AI Content Spam: The Core Update
We make a living off of knowing SEO, keywords, and SERP. It is important to all of us. I have been around websites and creating content for an embarrassingly long time. I appreciate Brenda's posting about The Core Update and Diane's kicking people on it. So naturally I went to check Partha's take on this. While he hasn't posted yet, I am expecting guidance shortly. What I did find is a great post on What Does Google Want? That post goes into details of Google's manual, back-breaking efforts to combat AI content SPAM. That was when the light came on. I get it, I think...
Here is What I Think I Know
OpenAI threw back the curtain on its newest project - ChatGPT in November 2022. This is a tireless virtual assistant who can write a list of 1001 Perfectly Profitable Passive Income Niches at will. This has sent tsunami-sized waves throughout the entire blogosphere.
Content is being cranked out at a feverishly high rate. Most of this content is straight from the spigot, and unwashed. Google said, "Don't You Dare Use this for Content Creation" (murmuring to themselves, "How are we going to index all of this"). "The penalty for doing so will be death". A few nefarious "Black Hat" bloggers, tested Google on this. They created optimized content posted it and Google ranked it. Needless to say, they told everyone that Google missed their post and ranked it. The rush was on!
Google had to take a step back and issue a mea culpa. AI Content is OK if it is Helpful. If it is helpful? What was that supposed to mean? Google had to eat crow. Fast forward to March 2024. Revenge is Mine Sayeth Google. This update is the first shot at cracking down on AI-generated "Fluff" pieces.
Here is What I UnderstandGoogle is countering the AI Content onslaught with a major "Core Update" in search quality that targets SPAM and Elevate User Experience. SPAM and User Experience? What do these two items have in common? Why tie this together in this update? Have you read Partha's post "What Does Google Want?" The reason is simple. Humans within the Halls of Google are manually force-feeding their AI "What They Like", in an attempt to teach it how to spot good content.
Google is Drafting You to Fight SPAM for Them
The results up to this point are not good. Google is choking, shallow AI Content is filling up the search results. Try as they might, they cannot force-feed enough examples into their AI Algorithms to make a difference. It requires a Herculean effort and time. Time is something that they do not have.
Can you spot AI Canned SPAM? I know that I can. Can you? Google is betting that you can too. Without our knowledge are are being drafted. You and I are going to lend a hand to Google to help them determine good content. The second part of the core update equation is User Experience. More specifically, how long do you stay on the page they gave you? When you jump off the page like you just got the shock of your life, they know that that page is not good. Google will make notes and follow the signs.
Tightening its grip on low-quality content is the goal. The ultimate goal? To eliminate the embarrassment AND SAVE THEIR SEARCH BUSINESS.
Elbow and Leg Room on the Google Index
Google is prioritizing useful information and reducing unoriginal content in search results through improved quality ranking and SPAM policies.
The update targets a 40% reduction in low-quality, unoriginal content, emphasizing the importance of delivering relevant and helpful content to users.
The update focuses on refining core ranking systems to identify helpful web pages, enhance user experiences, and deter content created primarily for search engines. Additionally, Google has updated its spam policies to address manipulative behaviors like scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse.
The emphasis is on encouraging creators to produce valuable and trustworthy content that caters to user needs.
Google has set May 5 (two months) as the enforcement date for these policy changes, allowing site owners time to adjust their strategies accordingly. In other words, clean up the unwashed or suffer the Wrath of Khan! You will die, 40% erased from the index, possibly forever. Resurrection, you can rebuild it, reindex it. Live a long healthy life once you comply.
Google's commitment to improving search quality while combatting spam is paramount. IF we are to continue to just "Google It", and trust the results, Google must win this war. They have to stop serving AI content, altogether!
The New Core
Google is removing 40% of ALL AI GENERATED CONTENT FROM ITS INDEX. Did you do the right thing? Did you "spit-polish" your content? How many pages have you immediately jumped off of in the last year? Your JUMP is going to be Google's key to go back and review the page for violations. Google is looking to punish those who didn't follow its guidelines, who embarrassed them, and who have pushed it to the edge of extinction.
You have 60 days to polish your content and get it reindexed. Indexing has been talked about a lot lately, so no one should ask how. Imagine doing all the work and not requesting reindexing and your posts disappear. Don't let it happen to you.
Recent Comments
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Interestingly, in podcasts I have been listening to it has been widely agreed that Google is about to release its own AI generation platform in competition to ChatGPT (who will also release GPT5 soon after as a counter punch).
It is true that the use of AI is literally flooding the internet with too much for them the handle and rank so this will add to the interest.
If you are refining your work, the consensus is to ensure to highlight your expertise as well.
Thanks for the update.
Paul
Gemini is that release. They have released their first level, Level II is upcoming, Levels 3 &4, will follow.
Google will not give up ground to the BOTS without a fight.
This is a great article and thanks for sharing. For someone fairly new to building my own website and naturally using AI, I tend to spend hours on trying to personalise the content and try to write it in ‘my style’, but I’m a little unsure how far I go so that it’s not too obvious that the original content has been generated by AI. I have noticed that there is quite a lot of the phrasing that is duplicated across articles and I’m trying to amend these for uniqueness.
Hi - thank you for the mention and this post.
However, the date of May 5 only relates to the Spam Update, and in particular, Site Reputation Abuse.
Also known as Parasite SEO, I doubt that anybody here in WA is doing this.
Essentially, you would be paying a big site with high domain authority, to host your content, even if it's irrelevant to the main niche of the original site.
For example, a medical site hosting content about casinos.
This is where the May 5 date comes in, site owners need to block Google from indexing these irrelevant posts.
As for the rest of us, it is the Core Update we need to be concerned with, which runs for approximately one month starting March 5.
If you fall foul of the Helpful Content policies, and see a drop in rankings, then it's probably too late to do anything about it.
Even if you make improvements to your content, you may have to wait for the next Core Update before Google spots the changes.
Diane, Thank you for for the clarification Which means for the next month, your focus needs to be on update and index anything that you didn't update.
If pages in your website are amiss, your whole website could be suspect.
Again Diane thank you for the clarification.
We all need to understand this stuff
MrDon
Hmmm interesting. Always a good idea to keep that human element in your content, even if you use AI. Use your voice, offer up real examples and follow Google EEAT.
Good looking out for us!
Vic,
Thanks for stopping by. I have added you to my network. Brenda and Diane made mention of it, I owe the inspiration to them and of course Partha.
I would not have found the information without their pointing it out. Anything SEO and Google-related, I am interested in. Now more so than ever.
What I learn, I pass on.
Best of Business to you.
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Hi Donald
It'll definitely be interesting to see what happens with Google's new core update.
I agree with you that Google is being threatened by AI. However, I doubt Google will find a definitive move to significantly minimize the effect AI is having on the quality of their search results any time soon, let alone starting on May 5th.
Google wants "unique" content, yet it continues to contradict itself, sending mixed messages to content creators. Check out this post on aggregated data: Google Is Testing An Unreleased Generative AI Platform In my opinion, Google is relying on the high domain authority sites to give them unique, high-quality information. They are prioritizing user-generated content like Reddit and Quora, which in my niche are giving redundant, incomplete, and incorrect information about guitars more often than not.
Google also made an arrangement with Reddit to help train its AI model.
Here are two quotes from an article by CBS News:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-reddit-60-million-deal-ai-training/
"Google has struck a deal with Reddit that allows the search giant to use posts from the online discussion site for training its artificial intelligence models and to improve services such as Google Search."
"The arrangement, announced Thursday and valued at roughly $60 million, will also give Reddit access to Google AI models for improving its internal site search and other features. Reddit declined to comment or answer questions beyond its written statement about the deal."
Really, Google is basing a part of their search ranking algorithm on Reddit's posts? I could spend an entire lifetime correcting the information on Reddit about guitars. Lol 😂
Here's what's really happening. Google knows that a large majority of its search engine users are typing in queries like:
"What's the best guitar for Metal? Reddit"
and
"Who is the best Rock guitar player? Quora."
People in the "informational age" generally value quick answers over authority and completeness.
Let's not forget that Google is a business, and its prime directive is to make money for its shareholders.
Just my opinion, but as I said, we'll see how it all plays out. 😎
Rock On! 🤘
Frank 🎸