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 March 2024 Core Update Finished April 19th (A Week Ago)
New Google March 2024 Core Update Ranking Volatility
Weekend Google Core Ranking Volatility Taxing Site Owners
29 Days In The Google March 2024 Core Update Is Still Rolling Out
Deepening Google Core Ranking Volatility Hits Yesterday & Today
Google March Core Update Still Rolling Out & Heated SEO Chatter Continue
Most SEOs Did Not Send Feedback To Google On The March 2024 Core Update
Google: Helpful Content Update Recoveries May Take Much Longer Than Others
Reminder: Google’s Helpful Content Update Is No More – It’s A Core Update
Google: Indexing & Algorithm Updates Are Independent
Google Responds To Claims Where Search Results Can Be Harmful & Dangerous
Google Goes On Defensive On Its Search Quality & Forum Results Statements
Tuta Complains To EU Regulators Over Google March 2024 Core Update Ranking Drop

Google Spam & Algorithms:
Google Will Fight Site Reputation Abuse Spam Both With Manual Actions & Algorithms
Google Spam Reporting Tool To Gain Site Reputation Abuse
Forbes Blocks Its Coupon Directory Before Google Enforces The Site Reputation Abuse Policy
Forbes Completely Removes (410 Server Status) Coupon Directory

Google SEO:
Google Responds To The Verge Mocking Its Search Rankings For Best Printer
Google Explains Why It Shows Reddit & Forum Threads In Search So Often
Google Drops Video Carousel Markup
Google Publisher Center No Longer Allows Adding Publications
Google Breaks Out Googlebot IP Ranges For User-Triggered Fetchers
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Google Favicon Documentation Adds Rel Attribute Value Definitions
2024 Google Merchant Center Product Data Specification Updates
Google: Splitting & Merging Sites Takes Longer Than Normal Site Migrations
Google: We Won’t Change The 301 Redirect Signals For Ranking & SEO
Google: Our Link Best Practices Doc Are Still Good Guidelines
Google: We Need Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Google: Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
Google Crawl Budget Is Allocated By Hostname
Google Structured Data Carousels Beta Docs Clarifies Feature Availability & Markup Location

Google Search Console:
Google Search Console Adds Unused Ownership Tokens
Google Search Console Reporting Bug With AMP Pages & Web Stories In Google Images

Google SGE & AI:
Google SGE AI Overviews Has A New Title – AI Answer
Google SGE Testing Tabs In AI Overviews
Google AI Writing Some Search Knowledge Panels
Report: Google Considers Charging For AI Search Features Like SGE AI Overviews

Google Business Profiles & Local:
Google Maps Releases New Directions, Travel & EV Features
Google Business Profiles Gains Select Preferred Menu Source
Google Tests Posts Button In Local Listing Business Profile
Google Local Panel Results Tests Toggle To Next Result
Google Related Searches Displaying Local Carousel
Google Maps No Longer Will Support Draft Reviews

Google User Interface Changes:
Google Tests Discussion and Forums Questions With Answers Box
Google Search Tests Thumbs Up/Down Buttons In Product Grid Results
Google Tests Horizontal Lines For Sitelinks & People Also Ask
Google Renames Product Sites To Product Websites
Google Knowledge Panels – Mentioned People
Google Tests Placing The Snippet Date Next To URL
Google Image Search Tests Tablet Like Design Interface
Google Notes On Search Won’t Necessarily Go Away In May
Google Image Search Gains Pixel Level Object Segmentation Animation

Google Business:
Google Ad Revenue Up 13% & Bing Ads Revenue Up 12%
Report: How Prabhakar Raghavan Killed Google Search
Google Threatens California: Tests Removing Links To Publishers & Pauses Investments

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.