Google ranking system is something of serious concern to website owners with publishers curious to know what factors impact their ranking. Recently, Google updated its search algorithm in March 2024 bringing some changes in how websites are ranked.
With Google’s new update to its algorithm, websites with helpful content which are written by subject-matter experts or enthusiasts, offering original research and perceptive commentary are better rewarded. The goal of the latest update is to make the Search Engine better by displaying more stuff that people find helpful and less content that seems to be meant to get clicks.
In the new update, to identify helpful content, Google makes use of multiple systems and signals. For signals, they operate at the page level to identify pages with helpful content. That means using signals, how helpful a page’s content is, is used in ranking it, and this independent of other pages of the website. However, there are other systems that contribute to ranking.
With the March 2024 core update, search engine users will start getting better search results containing helpful information for their queries. Also, content creators too will start seeing changes (negative or positive) in search engine rankings beginning from May 2024 when the update will be fully enforced.
If you are a publisher, this article is created to help you avoid common pitfalls that can demote your pages on search results.
7 things to avoid to prevent your website from being demoted due to the new Google Ranking System
As I said earlier, the following tips will help your website from being negatively impacted by the latest update in Google ranking system.
- Post Quality Content
Always publish quality content that is well researched, that is reliable, that offers good and factual analysis, and that is helpful to your audience. Google aim is to make search engine better by providing helpful information through search engine to users. So helpful information is the key.
- Ensure that visitors have a positive experience on your page
Google’s primary ranking algorithms favor material that enhances user experience. In order to succeed as a publisher or website owner, you shouldn’t concentrate on just one or two elements of the page experience. Instead, make sure that your page offers a fantastic overall experience in all respects.
- Ensure your content are people-first
Put people’s needs foremost when creating content. Content that is produced primarily for people, as opposed to search engine, is referred to as people-first content. Writing content with the search engine solely in mind impact your content negatively and this will likely be visible to the ranking system and negatively impact your page.
- Avoid automated or AI generated content
You can run trouble by using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate your content. This kind of content is not original and might not be factual. For a long time, Google has been against the use of automation to produce large amounts of unoriginal or low-quality material in an attempt to accumulate content or manipulate search engine ranking. Try to avoid automated content generation.
- Familiarize yourself with the EAT factors
Google’s ranking algorithms use of the EAT factors which are Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. To rank content after determining pages that are relevant, Google gives priority to the most helpful one among them using these factors. Trust is the most crucial of these factors. Trust can also be built on other factors, however not all of them need to be present in content. For instance, some content may be beneficial as a result of the experience it presents, while other content may be beneficial because of the knowledge it imparts.
- Avoid site reputation abuse
Avoid trying to improve your website or page ranking by posting irrelevant content on a reputed website. This may not help but impact your website negatively based on Google lastest update. Google’s new ranking system frowns at publisher who do this.
- Avoid expired domain abuse
At times, people buy expired domain names of websites which are doing well or have good traffic in order to benefit from the work that have already been done by such sites. The worst, after grabbing the domain name, they go ahead to add low quality content or irrelevant content to them. This is considered an abuse by Google and the latest update is programmed to punish such web creators.
Also read, Page Ranking Pitfalls: 20 Reasons & Fixes for SEO
Conclusion
In conclusion, Google latest update in its ranking system is a good one that is meant to demote websites with low quality content which are unhelpful to users and rank higher web pages with helpful information that are relevant to users queries.