Google March 2024 Update: A Search Apocalypse

Google's Big Update Causes Huge Changes!

Google just made a massive update to how it shows websites in search results. This update is extremely important and is shaking up the entire internet! Websites all over are getting completely removed from Google, essentially making them disappear. This is a big deal.

Websites Disappearing From Google

When Google rolled out this new update on March 5th, the effects were intense. So many websites suddenly vanished entirely from Google's search results. They didn't just get lower rankings; they were deleted from Google completely!

Jeff Coyle, an internet expert, tweeted about how "Imagine waking up to find your website gone from Google. That's exactly what happened to many websites."

According to researcher Lily Ray, over 10 different websites were instantly removed from Google's index after the update. That means those sites were completely erased and no longer exist on Google at all.

It wasn't just small, unknown sites either. Big, well-known websites that had existed for years were also removed without any warning. Some publishers who had networks of 8 different niche websites saw every single one of their sites get destroyed overnight.

Why Is This Happening?

So why is Google suddenly removing all these websites? Essentially, they are cracking down on low-quality websites that don't provide value to users. They stated their goal is to "reduce unhelpful, irrelevant, unoriginal content from search results."

Google claims up to 40% of websites could potentially get removed for being too low-quality! They are aggressively targeting sites with poor content, errors, outdated information, or content that seems created just for search engines rather than human readers.

Google doesn't want you to see websites like that when you search. Instead, they only want high-quality, trustworthy sites that provide legitimate expertise and value on topics.

No Website Is Safe

The crazy thing about this update is that no website is too big or too established to be affected. Tons of older websites that had avoided penalties for years suddenly got hit hard.

Size doesn't matter either - both huge websites and small ones were removed if their content wasn't good enough. Those old "authority" sites that had gotten by publishing low-effort content can no longer slack off.

For example, one notorious "link building agency" that created low-quality posts for its clients got completely deindexed or removed from Google's index. Their entire business model got ruined overnight!

But it's not just shady operations - even small affiliate blogs and AI writing services are getting penalized. If Google detects that a site is frequently publishing content generated by AI without human oversight, bam - deindexed.

The AI Content Crackdown

Speaking of AI, the use of AI writing models like ChatGPT seems to be a major factor behind this update. Google is clearly not a fan of computer-generated content being passed off as high-quality information.

In fact, Google has explicitly stated that "AI content" is now something they will judge as not trustworthy and having low expertise/authority.  With their advanced AI detection systems, they can identify if text was written entirely or even partially by an AI.

While the exact process is kept secret, some clues indicate Google may be looking for things like:

• Lack of true expertise on subjects beyond surface-level details

• No unique insights, just generic descriptive language

• Factual errors and outdated information

• Poor grammar and unnatural wording

So AI-generated text is automatically being viewed as untrustworthy by Google's systems now. Any site relying heavily on AI writing could easily get hit.

The E-E-A-T Quality Evaluation

The biggest factor deciding whether a site gets penalized is Google's "E-E-A-T" quality evaluation system. This scores websites on their Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Having good E-E-A-T signals is more crucial than ever before. It's not enough to just mention those concepts - you must prove them.

For expertise, Google wants to see credible author biographies showing deep topical knowledge and experience. For authority, they look at brand reputation metrics like search traffic and accreditations. And for trust, they require frequently updated information from verifiable sources.

Beyond just content, Google also judges the overall user experience of websites for E-E-A-T. If a site is slow, confusing to navigate, not mobile-friendly, etc. that will hurt its rankings.

In summary, Google's E-E-A-T system is all about signals of legitimately valuable, high-quality information worthy of being ranked highly in search results. Anything not meeting those standards gets devalued or removed entirely.

The End of Low-Effort Spam Content

For a long time, many website owners and SEO companies took a lazy approach. As long as some content was created that sort of matched popular keywords and searches, it could still show up in Google's top results.

That outdated strategy no longer works at all after this recent update. Google is straight-up purging any low-effort, keyword-stuffed, or spammy content from its index. Quality is 100% the priority now over quantity.

This means website owners have to produce thoughtful, high-quality, extremely thorough content if they want visibility. But even having tons of content isn't enough anymore - the writing itself has to be valuable, credible, and provide expertise that can't be found elsewhere easily.

On top of great content, sites also need optimized page speeds, mobile usability, security and overall fantastic user experiences if they want to rank well. Anything less is too low-quality for Google's new standards.

It's a harsh new reality, but Google is clearly done with lazy, subpar content clogging up their search results. Their message is simple: If your website isn't providing uniquely valuable information that helps people, it doesn't deserve to be indexed at all.

The New Rules of The Internet

This update from Google represents a major shift for the entire internet. They are flexing their power as the dominant search engine to enforce extremely strict quality rules for websites.

In the past, some websites could get away with shady optimization tactics and publishing low-quality filler content. Those strategies are now completely obsolete and will get sites banned.

Google has established themselves as the authority that determines what counts as a "good" website worthy of visibility. Their guidelines around E-E-A-T and quality are the new law of the internet that all websites must follow strictly.

This crackdown has split the internet into two categories: Websites that meet Google's standards get to have an online presence, and those that don't essentially get erased from the internet and become invisible.

Whether you think it's fair or not, Google is shaping the internet as they want it. They are aggressively rewarding high-quality, trustworthy, valuable websites while burying and deindexing any sites they deem to be unhelpful, spammy, or not meeting their quality criteria - no exceptions.

The internet as we know it is undergoing a huge shift. Following Google's rules around great content, expertise, trustworthiness, and awesome user experiences is now mandatory for any website wanting to have visibility and web traffic. Those not meeting the quality bar simply cease to exist online.

It's a whole new digital reality out there. Create uniquely amazing content that provides value or become digitally erased - that's the new saying for all websites. The Google quality judges have spoken!