Google released the March 2024 core update and new spam policies on March 5, 2024. The spam policy update has been already completed while the core update is still in progress.
There are a few points I want to address as a regular Google search user as well as a website owner. First, let’s talk about the negative impact of Google core update/spam policies on me as a Google user.
Before getting into the problem, I am to give my small educational background (It will be used later to show my problem). I am pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree in BSc Computer Science and Information Technology (BSc CSIT). Currently, I am in the fourth semester and we are having our semester exam at the moment.
So, When I go to Google and search for BSc CSIT 4th Semester Exam Center, I get all the old exam centers which is not the actual information I am looking for. This happened after this March update.
When I click on the first link, it wants me to go to another page to get the information which I think is irrelevant as I was looking for the information on that page. The remaining top results show me the exam center which is not updated.
Now, here comes my other part which is how I am affected as a site owner and I will link to the above problem that I faced as we Google user.
I have an article for the above keyword (link). I know, my article doesn’t have enough word count and neither my competitors does. But what my site has is straight forward answer to my user and an updated exam center as well. Before the core update, my pages used to rank in the top position but everything changed after the core update.
Neither my articles are AI written nor I am doing just for a click. As my website is for students, I know what they want as I am also a student.
Let’s move to another problem. When I search for Class 12 Model Question 2081, I get the following results:
When I click on the first result, it is totally spammy. Neither it is user-friendly neither it provides complete model questions set of Class 12.
What is interesting is, my article (link) was ranking for that keyword before the core update. Still, it ranks on the keyword Class 12 Model Question 2080 and receives thousands of visits every day.
Other lots of my articles are also facing similar problems like ranking on the keyword Top 10 IT College in Nepal (Top 3 Position on first page) but not in the top 100 results in the keyword Top 10 IT Colleges in Nepal. I think both keywords have similar meanings, aren’t they?
Also there are some problems like ranking on desktop but nowhere on mobile. Just take the example of the keyword SEE Routine 2080, it is ranking in the top 2 positions on desktop but nowhere in the top 100 results on mobile. The page is mobile-friendly and the search console shows no problems.
Similarly, my new posts are indexed but they are not shown on search results. Before the core update, they used to get the top position. And being an educational news site, normal news articles don’t have lots of words but our blog posts have a lot of words depending upon the topics and necessity.
These are just a few examples and almost every article are facing the same problem. However, my website is receiving lots of traffic between 10-20 thousand page views each day. Also, my brand search is increasing day by day. You can see the below images for reference.
I am not the only one who is facing this problem. There are other 3 websites I know are facing similar problems.
It would have been very helpful if Google provided us with information on how our site has been affected through the Google search console.
What is interesting is other competitors which have worse content than us are now ranking on the top results.
These are a few things I want to address please share this article so that this can reach the concerned authority.
