See terms.<\/a><\/p>\n3. The aggregate data only tells one part of the story <\/h2>\n With this update in particular, I think you can’t just sweep across the web and look at the top-level data. It’s, in a weird way, too normalized. <\/p>\n
Looking at the web horizontally includes sites that lost and gained rankings but mostly includes sites that did not do much of anything. <\/p>\n
To get a better understanding of the update, you have to hone in on who was impacted and the nature of that impact. That’s a more vertical and qualitative analysis. <\/p>\n
From what I see (again, it’s just what I see, and it’s anecdotal at that), the March 2024 core update had a bite to it that you don’t always see with a core update. <\/p>\n
Below is a site that slowly started to see growth in September 2023 (ironically right around the September 2023 helpful content update) and really took off in Q4 2023 (suspiciously so, but I have not dug enough to say that with any confidence). <\/p>\n
The March 2024 core update destroyed it. <\/p>\nSince I mentioned the September 2023 HCU, below is a site that saw a ranking reward with the August 2023 core update but a loss with the September 2023 HCU a month later. <\/p>\n
The March 2024 core update all but finished it off.<\/p>\nThere does seem to be a bit of a pattern with sites getting hit by the September 2023 HCU and seeing subsequent losses with the March 2024 core update:<\/p>\nMy personal theory is that no, Google did not throw away the HCU. It makes zero sense to me that they invested so heavily to create the construct only to throw it in the trash can. <\/p>\n
What I personally think happened is the classifier used by the HCU was built upon and serves as the foundation of the now multifaceted way Google algorithmically assesses helpfulness. <\/p>\n
Think of it like the Model T. No, the Model T is not produced anymore, but the process used to mass-produce it serves as the basis and foundation for mass-producing the cars we drive today.<\/p>\n
For the record, not all sites got hit; some got rewarded. Here’s a site’s informational content folder getting a massive uplift with the March 2024 core update:<\/p>\nSo how ‘big’ was the March 2024 core update? <\/h2>\n Trying to size up any algorithm update is such a precarious task. All the more so with the March 2024 core update. <\/p>\n
I hate to use the age-old SEO cliche, but it depends. It depends on how you look at it. <\/p>\n
Do you define the impact of the March 2024 core update by its reach across the web as a whole? If so, there are indications that it was more potent than your typical update but not definitively so. <\/p>\n
However, if you define the impact of the March 2024 core update by its ability and tendency to be heavy-handed, then the March 2024 core update, by all accounts, seems to have had some extra bite. <\/p>\n
My personal take: there was something different about this update. If you combine it all, the extra bite the update had in negatively impacting sites, the extra rank volatility seen at the 6th – 10th rank positions, etc., paints a picture of what is a very “unique” update. <\/p>\n
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff<\/a> and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.<\/em><\/p>\nGoogle’s March 2024 core update will hands down be one of the most talked-about SEO topics of the year, if not the last few years. There’s so much around the update, from its length to the death of the helpful content update (HCU) to all of the quality issues on the SERP (talking about you, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[18],"class_list":{"0":"post-371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seo","8":"tag-seo"},"yoast_head":"\n
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