If you've been glancing at the comments on this site or reading the feedback thus far on social media, you can tell that so far, SEOs and site owners are not that happy with the Google Search results since the launch of the Google March 2024 core update. Google has told us to be patient and wait to see the results when the updates are both completed but Google is also saying that it will open up a feedback form for you all to submit feedback about the update.
To be fair, Google posted this on March 5th when they announced the update. Google wrote, "We'll also announce and open up a form after the update has concluded for any specific feedback people might have."
Google's Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, reiterated that last night on X responding to a visibly update site owner, saying, "When the update is finished, as we shared in our blog post, we'll open up a feedback form specifically so creators can share examples that we can explore further." He also added the typical line that Google is not perfect, saying, "Our ranking systems aren't perfect (nothing is), but we specifically preannounced having this form so we can get feedback that may help us improve further."
Google should be 40% more perfect with this update, no? Google did say, "Based on our evaluations, we expect that the combination of this update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%."
As a reminder, the March 2024 core update started officially on March 5th, then we first saw ranking shifts on March 8th and 9th, then some reversals on March 12th and then more movement on March 15th. The update can take a full month to roll out, so it may go into April 2024.
If you look at any of the comments on that post, you will see it is filled with not just hatful and angry comments but also heartbreaking and devastating comments of site owners who have seen their online businesses shrink to almost nothing since the September 2023 helpful content update and were hopeful that this new update would reverse things. But it seems like, at least two weeks in, it is only getting worse for many of them. But again, we still have two more weeks to go...
Here is that post:
When the update is finished, as we shared in our blog post, we'll open up a feedback form specifically so creators can share examples that we can explore further. Our ranking systems aren't perfect (nothing is), but we specifically preannounced having this form so we can get…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 18, 2024
Some of you folks think that I do not know what it is like to be hit by a Google Search algorithm or penalty. I was hit by both, I was hit by a couple of Panda updates and I was hit by manual actions, even before there were manual actions.
That being said, Google will open up a feedback form but the time it takes for Google to collect the feedback, the time it takes for Google to process the feedback, the time it takes Google to adjust any ranking systems - many businesses don't have that luxury of time.
Forum discussion at X.
