Google keeps updating its search engine algorithm every year. Google brings many updates in a year so that users get accurate, reliable, and relevant results for the search query.
Google brought one such update in March 2024, which affected millions of websites and blogs. One of my websites was also hit by a Google SEO March update. My website was getting good traffic, but after the March update, all the traffic to this website disappeared. As you can see in the above Google Console screenshot and below Google analytic screenshot
I have been running this site since 2017, and there has been good traffic on it. This website was generating good revenue due to its traffic. As soon as the website traffic went down, the revenue generation from it also decreased.
Why Website Traffic Dropped After the Google March 2024 SEO Update
Google’s new SEO updates always shock many online webmasters and SEO experts. Google’s March SEO update was also the biggest algorithm update, like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird. Millions of websites were impacted by this Google algorithmic update.
I thought that I was doing everything right on my website, but I avoided the following thing: Which was the main reason for the website traffic drop after the Google SEO update in March 2024.
1. AI content
Actually, I run this blog-posting website. I wrote and posted my own content and also started accepting guest posts. But I don’t know how others write it. Ever since AI technology took place, many content writers have stopped writing human-written content and have started using AI tools for content writing. I received a lot of such articles that I posted on my website without checking them. When Google’s update came, my website would get hit.
Lesson: Don’t post AI-generated content the same as it is.
2. Article Topic: Redundancy
When you put a lot of content on the same topic on your website, it is called content topic dependency or redundancy. I have noticed now that there are a lot of articles with the same title on my website. This can also be a reason why my website traffic has decreased. Search engines get confused and they cannot understand which topic article to index and rank.
Don’t post the same topic content multiple- times on your website.
3. Imbalanced content posting
When I created this website, I only posted my own articles on the website. But after some time, I started getting offers from other bloggers saying that if you post our content on your website, we will pay you. I reduced writing my own articles and started posting more content from other bloggers. This imbalance has also become another cause of reduced website traffic over time and Google penalties later.
Write and post your own written content as much as possible.
4. External Links
As soon as the site started generating revenue through guest blogging, my profit margin increased, and I started putting external links in the post. As a result, the number of external links increased, and website traffic went down. Now the Google algorithm has also started monitoring that this website is built for link-building purposes, not for users.
It is fine to put references from trustworthy sources, but when you put links from other business websites on your website, it affects the ranking of your website.
Don’t insert so many external links from other business websites.
5. Outdated Content
I posted thousands of posts from 2017 to the present. But I didn’t update the post content which needs to be updated over time. I really need to update research and report sentences, graphs, statistics, product prices, outdated advice, and more information that contains old data. Outdated content is information that no longer adds value to the user or your brand.
If you encounter outdated content, consider refreshing or removing it to maintain relevance and accuracy.
6. Low Quality Content
Many guest bloggers also sent me low-quality content that was created for link-building purposes. Some articles were small, with just about 350 words & promotional paragraphs, and poor writing. It seems they were not written expertly and professionally. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a concept of original and quality content writing.
Don’t post low-quality content that has no meaning
Nowadays, Google’s search engine algorithm is very smart. You cannot play tricks and deceive it. Google wants the author and content writer to write content for users, not search engines.
