Google Core Update August 2024 & Its Impact On Affiliate Marketers 

Google Core Update August 2024 is not shocking to affiliate marketers. The update was rolled out on 15th August 2024 and is still going on. It might take a month for the update to be finished.

These Core updates are designed to improve the overall quality of search results, but they often come with challenges that impact traffic and revenue for websites and blogs. 

Along with the Core update, Google reported a ranking issue saying:

In this post, we will understand how affiliate marketers can enhance their rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can be done by implementing ethical SEO strategies.

Understanding Google Core Update August 2024

The March Core Update severely affected many small sites resulting in a complete traffic loss. After hearing feedback from creators and affiliate marketers, Google launched its August Core Update. This update aims to show genuine content on the top of search results, thereby showing less content meant only for SEO purposes.

Here are the key points to be taken from this Google Core update:

1. Content Quality and usefulness: Google continues to prioritize content that is created keeping in mind users’ perspective and not just SEO. Thin content, particularly on affiliate sites that focus on product reviews or comparisons, may not perform well. Such content is made only to promote a product with affiliate links that Google does not like.
2. User Experience (UX): The August 2024 update emphasizes UX metrics such as page load speed, responsiveness, and ease of navigation (breadcrumbs). Websites that load faster and provide easy navigation across all devices might experience a traffic surge.
3. Authority and Expertise: Affiliate marketers running multiple affiliate blogs fail to provide authenticity. One person cannot be an author of multiple sites. Affiliate marketers should focus on building profile authority and ensuring their experience is reflected in their content. Affiliate marketers should precisely follow the E-E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) rules.
4. Backlink Quality Over Quantity: While backlinks have always been a crucial ranking factor, the Google August 2024 update focuses even more on the quality of links rather than the quantity. Buying a large number of links is not the solution. Affiliates should focus on building healthy relationships with fellow affiliates.

What Should Affiliate Marketers Do?

Given these changes, affiliate marketers need to adapt their strategies to maintain their rankings and continue driving traffic. Below are some actionable steps:

1. Curate User-Focused Content

To align with Google’s focus on content quality, affiliate marketers should prioritize creating high-value, in-depth content that users are looking for. 

Action to be taken:

• Update Existing Content: Review and update existing content to ensure it is updated with the latest information. Add statistics, FAQs, and question-based long-tail keywords.
• Focus on User Intent: Ensure your content aligns with the search intent of your target audience. This means understanding what users are looking for when they search for specific keywords and tailoring your content accordingly.
• Creating Unique Content: Avoid duplicating content from other sources. Instead, offer unique perspectives, highlight research, or expert opinions.

2. Improve User Experience

With the August 2024 update emphasizing user experience, affiliate marketers should focus on optimizing their sites for UX.

Action to be taken:

• Optimize Page Load Speed: Faster sites tend to rank better and provide a better user experience. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to identify page speed on desktop and mobile. Fix issues that were slowing down your site resulting in a low bounce rate.
• Ensure Mobile Responsiveness: With more users accessing sites via mobile devices, ensure that your site is fully responsive and offers a seamless experience on all screen sizes.
• Easy Navigation: Easier navigation helps users find pieces of content linked to the original one. This involves improving your site’s navigation menu, adding internal links & breadcrumbs, and improving overall site structure.

3. Build Link Authority and Expertise

To meet the updated E-E-A-T criteria, affiliate marketers should focus on building their authority and expertise within their niches:

Action to be taken:

• Flaunt Your Expertise: If you have relevant qualifications, experience, or certifications, highlight these on your site. Consider adding author bios that establish credibility. You can sometimes accept guest posts.
• Create High-Quality Backlinks: Backlinks were and are still an important factor for ranking your content higher on Google. Focus on building quality backlinks on sites with high DA in your niche. This might involve guest blogging, collaborating with fellow affiliates, or creating content that naturally attracts links.

4. Monitor and Adjust

The impact of Google’s updates takes time (up to a month). Keep an eye on your site performance using GSC and GA4. WordPress users can install SEO plugins like Rank Math Pro to monitor keywords and page indexing within the dashboard.

• Track Key Metrics: Monitor your site’s traffic, rankings, and conversions. Identify which posts are driving more traffic to your site and which ones are thin content.
• Stay Informed: With every Core Update, Google prepares guidelines to be followed. Following these guidelines and making necessary changes to your website will bring fruitful results.

Google’s August 2024 Core Update Rollover Complete

The Google August 2024 Core Update Rollout is now complete.
The update was released on 15 Aug 2024 and completed on 3 Sep 2024, taking 19 days to complete.
This update focused on helpful content over SEO-optimized content.
Sites that have lost traffic and rankings must improve their content and wait for good results.
Any guesses as to when Google will release the next update?

Conclusion

Google Core Update August 2024 is a promise by the search engine giant’s commitment to delivering useful, genuine, and authoritative content. 

Affiliate marketers should adapt to these updates and focus on content quality, user experience, high-quality links, and performance monitoring. 

Adapting to search engine algorithms means more chances of survival in the era of AI tools. Creating humanized content is the need of the hour.

🌟 FAQs | Google Core Update August 2024