Google To Remove “Add Me To Search” People Cards In April via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has announced that it will discontinue its “people cards” feature in Google Search on April 7.

The decision comes after Google realized the feature was not as helpful for users as initially hoped.

People cards were introduced in 2020 to make it easier for individuals to highlight information about themselves on Google Search, such as websites and social profiles. The feature was initially launched in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, but individuals in other countries could access it using a VPN.

In an email sent to users who created people cards, Google stated,

“While people cards worked as intended, in the years since its launch, we’ve learned this feature wasn’t as helpful for people as we hoped.”

Google is letting users download or save content from their people cards until May 7, after which the information will be deleted.

Background: People Cards As A Virtual Business Card

People cards were designed to serve as virtual business cards, helping professionals, performers, influencers, entrepreneurs, job hunters, and freelancers establish a notable online presence.

This feature was handy for individuals who shared a common name or had difficulty gaining visibility in search results.

The card included fields for a user’s name, location, job, a brief “About” section, and optional links to social profiles and other relevant information.

Impact & Future Implications

Discontinuing people cards will only affect this specific feature on Google Search and won’t impact other Google products or services. However, the change may be disappointing for users who have relied on the feature to establish their online presence and improve their visibility in search results.

Google’s decision to retire people cards raises questions about the future of similar features designed to help individuals showcase their personal information and professional achievements online.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, companies like Google evaluate the effectiveness of new features to ensure they provide meaningful value to their users.

Retiring features that don’t provide adequate value allows Google to allocate resources to more helpful tools.

Google will send users a reminder as the April 7 discontinuation date approaches.

Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock

Google Updates Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has updated its “Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines,” a comprehensive 170-page document that serves as a framework for quality raters to assess websites effectively.

The update on follows the search engine’s latest Core and Spam updates.

Insights Into Trustworthiness

The updated guidelines provide valuable insights into how Google determines the trustworthiness of webpages and websites.

While the quality raters don’t directly influence search rankings, the document explains what Google considers essential for a high-quality website.

Latest Changes

According to the changelog on page 170 of the document, Google has “updated characteristics of untrustworthy pages and added illustrative examples.”

This marks the first update to the guidelines since November 2023, highlighting the significance of the changes made.

Untrustworthy Webpages & Websites

The new information is on page 35, Section 4.5, titled “Untrustworthy Webpages or Websites.”

Google has expanded the list of characteristics that quality raters should look for when assessing the trustworthiness of a webpage or website.

The document now states that a page should be considered untrustworthy if it contains “multiple or significant factual inaccuracies on an informational page which would cause users to lose trust in the webpage as a reliable source of information.”

Illustrative Examples

To further clarify these updates, Google has included illustrative examples within the quality raters guide.

Google updated their Search Quality Raters Guidelines document for the first time since November 2023 with:

“Updated characteristics of untrustworthy pages and added illustrative examples”

🤨 Evidence of fraudulent behavior
🤨 Evidence of criminal behavior

Below are the… pic.twitter.com/4fcGicfsoK

— Carl Hendy (@carlhendy) March 6, 2024

These examples provide practical guidance on identifying untrustworthy pages and websites, helping quality raters make more informed assessments.

The Importance Of Trustworthy Content

The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines updates are notable as the internet continues to grow and evolve rapidly.

With the increasing prevalence of misinformation, it’s more important than ever for search engines to prioritize trustworthy and accurate content.

Implications For Website Owners & SEO Professionals

As Google continues to refine its algorithms and guidelines, website owners and SEO professionals should take note of these changes and strive to create high-quality, trustworthy content that meets the search engine’s standards.

Doing so can improve their chances of ranking well in search results and provide users with the reliable information they seek.

In Summary

The updated Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines serve as a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand Google’s expectations for website quality. As the search landscape evolves, staying informed about these guidelines and adapting accordingly will be essential for continued success.

Featured Image: dennizn/Shutterstock

Google March 2024 Update: 6 Insights On Manual Actions via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s algorithm is wasting no time in removing low quality sites from the search results. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the volume of sites affected by this update may reach historic levels not seen since the Panda and Penguin updates.

1. March 2024 Update Qualifies As Major

I have been around for every single Google update and in my opinion the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update is clearly on the same impact level as the Florida, Panda and Penguin updates in terms of how widespread the effects are. Senior marketers with decades of experience that I’ve spoken with all agree that this update is right up there as one of the big ones.

While the Medic update was a shift in the algorithm, what’s happening now is more than a single big shift. It’s a profound change in how sites are ranked. So it’s useful to review what’s getting penalized to understand the scope of this update.

2. Sites That Survived Previous Updates Didn’t Escape This One

Posts across social media demonstrate that Google is removing entire websites from the search results and from the search index. Some reports are from observers celebrating the removal of low quality sites that have stubbornly clung in the SERPs through past Google updates.

Other posts are by publishers who are confused by why their network of sites are entirely gone.

A post in the private Affiliate SEO Mastermind group relates the plight of a publisher whose entire network collapsed.

Key details of that post are that all eight affected sites were created within the past two years and each was about a different niche topic. The author of the post claims that the content was manually created with only a little help from AI. All websites are showing zero traffic impressions.

Perhaps one clue as to why that person’s sites were affected is that they were all in different topics, which may be an indication that the author of the sites may not have had the deep topical expertise that Google is looking for.

The person who made that Facebook post indicated they’re giving up and focusing their future efforts on YouTube.

Jeff Coyle of MarketMuse AI Content Planning tweeted that a group of sites he follows as a barometer of the effectiveness of Google’s search algorithms were finally removed from Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

Jeff tweeted:

“I was checking out a pool of SERPs I monitor for a collection of horrible spam sites that have been present and creeping around for 12-18 months. Many are completely deindexed, and others are hidden in filter=0 or literally bunched up at the bottom (the actual bottom, like the last findable URLs) of the SERP.”

@barelypurple responded to Jeff’s tweet:

“Some pure garbage getting demolished which is great but my main concern is that we’ll just see big sites getting even more traction.”

3. Penalties Happening Fast

Another interesting feature of this update is the speed at which sites are receiving manual actions.

@ratneshkumar684 tweeted:

“It seems @googlesearchc is very fast to implement the spam update this time.

One of my friend’s site got completely deindexed today morning.

Just now he received this manual penalty affecting all the pages.

The site was publishing news in the entertainment niche.”

Screenshot Of Manual Action Notification

Lily Ray tweeted about ten sites gone overnight:

10 websites completely removed from Google search overnight. https://t.co/eeUgmhRxXs

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) March 6, 2024

Gael Breton tweeted:

“I’m seeing AI spam sites getting fully deindexed left and right right now.

It’s going to get interesting”

@PureAffiliate responded with a tweet about a self-described “link building agency” that was completely eliminated from Google’s search results.

Julian Goldie’s site has gone https://t.co/a82NQmQDVB

— Bobstack (@PureAffiliate) March 6, 2024

Screenshot Of Site Absent From SERPs

4. Inconsistent Communication About Manual Actions

Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) posted about businesses that came to her for help who reported inconsistent messaging from Google about manual actions, with some receiving an email about it while others noticed the manual action in their Google Search Console. Interestingly, one case experienced a decline in traffic prior to receiving a message through Google’s search console.

I’ve been brought on to help some sites after they realilzed that they had a manual action. Looking at the data, most had a significant decline before the MA should up in thier GSC. A few recieved an email.

— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) March 6, 2024

Ollie Ryman @ollie_ryman commented about manual actions related to “abusive experiences” where the manual actions do not appear in Google Search Console and the only notification is through email.

Ollie tweeted:

@searchliaison Hi, abusive experiences do not appear as a manual action in GSC, they are only visible in the legacy webmaster tools. If someone uses a domain property, the only way they will know is if they see the email notification. Is it supposed to be this way?

— Ollie Ryman (@ollie_ryman) March 6, 2024

@tonythill shared that everyone he asked about their manual action reported that they did not receive an email notification.

Good question. Everyone I’ve asked who got the manual action said they did not get an email notification about it 🤔

— Tony Hill (@tonythill) March 6, 2024

5. Small AI Content Sites Can Receive A Manual Action

Someone on Twitter suggested that Google is able to detect AI generated content by the massive amount of content published in a short amount of time.

Google de-indexing AI sites has to be down to publishing frequency rather than content. I’m not sure how they’d do it through the content, but if a site is posting 5k articles a day and abusing the search console API for indexing then it’s an easy one to flag.

— Craig Griffiths (@Griffo_) March 6, 2024

The observation that the publishing speed can make a spam site easy to identify is correct. But the overall observation underestimates Google’s ability to catch AI generated content according to a response that the above tweet received.

@PeteReynolds_ responded to the above tweet with his actual experience with a small site that contains AI generated content that wasn’t competing for anything and was basically just sitting around. That seemingly inconsequential site received a manual action.

Pete tweeted:

I have a site that has just 8 articles on it, published one year ago. Was 100% AI, and just intended to warm up the domain in case I ever wanted to pursue the project.

It’s the only site in my portfolio that has got the manual action.

— Pete Reynolds (@PeteReynolds_) March 6, 2024

Something else to consider is that statistical analysis uses more than just one data point (like the speed of content posting). The accuracy of statistical analysis is increasingly accurate with multiple data points and this has been a feature of statistical analysis in search engines for almost twenty years.

6. Old Sites Getting A Manual Action

Another facet of this update is that it’s affecting older sites that haven’t previously received manual actions.

@simransingh931 tweeted:

“Even one of our websites got hit with a manual penalty.

I started it in 2013, a brand new domain, that ranked well and was receiving good traffic over the years. Today I got a manual penalty for it.

No Spam, Articles written by trusted authors, everything from screenshots to content was our own.

I thought it was just us, but searched and found this and a few other threads.”

Takeaway: Reflection Before Action

The breadth and scope of the manual actions reported by the search marketing community validate Google’s announcement that the update contains a major change to their ranking systems and algorithms.

The Florida, Panda and Penguin updates introduced new technologies that exposed weaknesses in common SEO tactics of their time. Search marketers responded with a period of recalibrating search strategies in order to identify the next best path forward.

This update will take  a full month to roll out. My opinion, is to familiarize yourself with the sites that receive manual actions in order to understand patterns common to penalized sites. But also, as ever, the most obvious problem that stands out isn’t necessarily the most serious problem.

The entire search marketing industry is waiting and watching.  Remember to breathe.

Featured image by Shutterstock/1000Photography

Google March 2024 Update: 4 Changes To Link Signal via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Spam Explainer was updated to reflect the new realities introduced by the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update. The following is everything that was removed and added and what it means what the implications are for the core algorithm update.

March 2024 Core Algorithm Update

Google’s core algorithm update is without question one of the big ones, the changes to the core ranking algorithm and other systems are profound.

The change to the Reviews system from a semi-monthly update to a continuous update was the first indication that something significant was happening behind the scenes because in my experience. That kind of change is usually preceded by an update to Google’s underlying infrastructure, either at the software or hardware level or both simultaneously (as seen with Google’s Hummingbird update which enabled more powerful capabilities).

Updates to Google’s Spam Explainer document reveal key insights about what is going on behind the scenes with this month’s ongoing update, much of which focuses on links.

1. Google Deemphasizes Links

At least year’s Pubcon Austin 2023, Google’s Gary Illyes remarked that links aren’t even in the top 3 of important ranking signals.

A single edit to the spam documentation appears to confirm Illyes statement because the documentation literally deemphasizes links.

Previous documentation:

“Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”

New documentation:

“Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”

The removal of the word “important” could normally be conservatively be viewed as ambiguous. But it’s hard to be conservative when contrasted with Illyes’ statement about links. In my opinion there’s a purpose to the removal of the word “important” and that purpose is to deemphasize the role of links.

2. Content Created For For Link Manipulation

There is a second link related addition to the guidelines. This new factor relates to creating content for the purpose of manipulative links. This is communicated in a new sentence added to a list of examples of manipulative links.

This is the description of the new Content and Links signal:

“Creating low-value content primarily for the purposes of manipulating linking and ranking signals.”

That’s kind of ambiguous, but it does sound like it’s aimed at a form of paid links where a network of sites is created for the purpose of pointing links from contextually relevant pages. This is a very old practice that those who are new to SEO call Private Blog Networks (PBNs).

3. New Signal Related To Outgoing Links

Another new signal is focused on manipulative outgoing links. Google has always penalized sites that sell (outgoing) links. But this may be the first time Google expressly mentions outgoing links as something their algorithm is examining.

This is what the new sentences say:

“Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

4. New Expired Domains Signal

Some may conclude from today’s announcement that Google is cracking down on expired domains. That interpretation is not entirely accurate.

What’s really happening is that Google is introducing a new signal related to how domains are used, which specifically scans for changes from how a domain was previously used to a new purpose.

Google uses the word “repurpose” to describe the signal:

“Expired domain abuse is where an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users.”

Google’s updated guidelines list the following examples of some of what the new signal is looking for:

“Affiliate content on a site previously used by a government agency

Commercial medical products being sold on a site previously used by a non-profit medical charity

Casino-related content on a former elementary school site”

The guidelines say that the above list are examples and that what the signal is looking for is not limited to what’s in the above example. The confirmed takeaway is that Google’s expired domain signal is examining how the purpose of the new site built on an expired domain differs from the old purpose.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that keeping the content similar is enough to fly under the signal because the signal is looking at the purpose, such as going from a non-affiliate purpose to an affiliate purpose.

Why Changes Are Described Ambiguously

Those are the four additions to Google’s spam explainer page that specifically target link signals. Some of the changes may seem ambiguous in order to provide the general contours of the new link signals without precisely saying what those changes are, which is understandable.

I have 25 years hands-on experience as an SEO experiencing and analyzing search engine updates and in my opinion it would be a mistake to use the ambiguity in how Google describes the signals to deny that a change occurred.  I expect that those who have a financial stake in maintaining the status quo will deny the changes because that’s what they tend to do. It’s up to you to decide for yourself.

There are more changes to the spam document but these are the changes that relate specifically to link signals in Google’s updated core ranking algorithm.

Before making any changes in response to the algorithm it may be useful to consider that the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update will take a month to fully roll out.

Read Google’s updated documentation:

Spam policies for Google web search

Top Insights For Maximum Visibility And Performance via @sejournal, @facan

Editor’s note: This article is republished with permission from Microsoft. 

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