On the 19th December, only seven days after releasing the December 2024 core update, Google gave us an early Christmas gift with the December 2024 spam update.
Like previous spam updates, this update focuses on improving the quality of search results shown to users by reducing the visibility of low-quality or ‘spammy’ content and websites and boosting the visibility of high-quality, helpful content.
The December 2024 spam update had quite a big impact, causing a lot of ranking volatility during the rollout process. Some sites are still experiencing low traffic levels after the update finished rolling out on Boxing Day (26th December).
If you’ve been experiencing some drops in traffic or ranking positions, keep reading as we cover what the December 2024 spam update involved and some tips on how to recover if you’ve been impacted.
What did the December 2024 Spam Update focus on?
As usual with Google Search updates, Google hasn’t released a full breakdown of what they’ve changed with this update.
All we know is that it didn’t target spammy backlinks or site reputation abuse but instead focused on penalising websites that breach Google’s spam policies.
This was probably the biggest spam update Google has released to date, and off the back of two core updates in November and December, the impact has been huge – with high-ranking volatility being seen across all of December.
While Google hasn’t been specific on what this update has changed, here’s what they said about their spam policies back in October 2024:
“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.
For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.”
Google recommends any sites that see negative impacts from the December 2024 spam update review their spam policies to ensure you’re following their rules and guidelines.
What do Google’s spam policies cover?
Cloaking
Cloaking is a deceptive practice where a website shows one version of content to search engines while displaying entirely different content to users to manipulate rankings and mislead users.
For example, a web page might pretend to be about holiday destinations but show users adverts for unrelated products or services.
Obviously, this is misleading and ruins the user experience on a website, which is why cloaking is against Google’s guidelines and can result in penalties.
Doorway pages
Doorway pages are low-value pages created to target specific keywords and funnel users to a single destination, and go against Google’s spam policies.
These pages often lack original content and serve only to manipulate rankings. For instance, multiple identical pages on different domains redirecting to the same site are considered doorway pages.
Doorway pages typically offer no user experience value and are only designed to manipulate rankings and traffic.
Expired domain abuse
Using expired domains to manipulate rankings, such as repurposing them for spammy or unrelated content, breaches Google’s spam rules.
Expired domain abuse usually involves buying a previously legitimate and reputable domain to host irrelevant affiliate content.
Because this practice is deceptive and undermines user trust, it can lead to penalties from Google.
Hacked content
Hacked content refers to unauthorised code, content or ads that are injected into websites due to exploited security vulnerabilities. Spammy or malicious content is usually added to your website by hackers, and it can harm users and damage your website’s reputation.
It’s your responsibility to maintain your website and keep it secure to avoid hacked content and to quickly address any breaches to avoid spam penalties from Google.
Hidden text and links
Hiding text or links so that they are not visible to users but can be found by search engine crawlers goes against Google’s guidelines.
For example, if you hide text and links by using white fonts on a white background or using CSS to hide elements, Google sees this as trying to deceive both users and search engines to manipulate search rankings.
Link spam
Link spam includes creating or acquiring backlinks links purely to manipulate rankings.
Google’s policies discourage tactics such as buying links, excessive link exchanges, and using automated systems to generate backlinks, and Google is known to hit offenders with manual action penalties.
Machine-generated traffic
Using automated tools or systems to send queries to Google, such as scraping data or automated rank-checking, violates their spam policies.
These tools waste resources and can disrupt services, so Google penalises websites that use these unethical practices.
Malware and malicious practices
Unsurprisingly, Google strictly prohibits websites that host malware or distribute malicious software.
Google takes these threats seriously, and offending sites are often deindexed from search results entirely.
How to recover from the December 2024 Spam Update
Review Google’s spam policies
Make sure you review and educate yourself on Google’s spam policies and the SEO practices that it forbids.
By understanding these policies, you can review your website and SEO strategy and adjust to meet Google’s guidelines and policy requirements.
Make changes where necessary
If you notice that some elements of your website or SEO strategy violate Google’s spam policies, you should aim to fix them as soon as possible.
Make effective changes where necessary and closely monitor your website performance and rankings using Google Search Console.
Be patient, it will take time
Don’t expect everything to go back to normal overnight.
If you’ve been affected by the December 2024 spam update, it can take a few months to see improvements, even if you’ve made all the required changes to meet Google’s policy requirements.
Be patient and avoid making knee-jerk changes that could further impact your SEO performance.
Still not sure where to start?
If you’ve been affected by the December 2024 spam update and are unsure of the cause, our SEO specialists can help.
We’ll run a full deep-dive SEO audit on your website and comb through every page to ensure you meet Google’s spam policy requirements and all other search engine guidelines.
To speak to an SEO specialist, call us on 01329 565001 or fill out our contact form.
