The #1 March 2024 Core Update Edition

They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, except for those times when March comes in like a lion and takes out a wide swath of sheep. Then they just say, "whoa!". So Google rode into March like a hungry lion with a staggeringly complicated Core Update, a very serious shellacking of manual penalties, changes to who can monetize content with AdSense, a multi-sweep set of algorithm updates, and changes to guidelines given to search result quality raters. Various Google spokespersons have outlined Google's goals for this update while also trying to explain aspects of the update in their opaque and sometimes uptight Google coded ways. It will take at least four weeks for the March 2024 Core Update to fully play out, during which SEOs and webmasters can expect several sweeps over the course of the next four weeks. Expect a massive house cleaning as Google reacts to a year or more of deep seeded consumer complaints about declining search quality. Google says it intends to eliminate about 40% of spammy content. It remains to be seen if March goes out like a lamb or a lion but one week into the month there's already virtual carnage throughout the Colosseum.