May 2024 Google Webmaster Report: Core Update, Site Reputation Abuse, SEO, SGE, Local & More

In the past month, in Google-land, we have spoken a lot about the March 2024 core update, which ended 45 days later on April 19th, a week before Google notified us it was done. This core update was painful for many, especially those who were hit by the September helpful content update.

But more is to come, we have the site reputation abuse penalty coming in the next few days – are you ready? Sites like Forbes are already making changes, and many others are as well.

Meanwhile, Google has been busy responding to mocking and Reddit ranking for everything.

Google renamed the SGE AI Overviews to AI Answers and is using AI to write some knowledge panels. Some rumors suggest Google may charge for SGE features, but I doubt that – and it may launch at Google I/O.

Google’s revenue impressed Wall Street, maybe you can credit the man who killed Google Search with that.

There is a lot more, see below, and if you missed my last recap then read the April 2024 Google webmaster report.

Here are the top headlines for the past month related to Google organic search:

Google Core Update:

Google Spam & Algorithms:
Google SEO:
Google Search Console:
Google SGE & AI:
Google Business Profiles & Local:
Google User Interface Changes:
Google Business:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.