Natural referencing relies on a website’s ability to meet the technical, editorial, and popularity criteria that search engines use to rank their results. In 2024, several of these criteria have changed in nature or scope, rendering some still-common practices obsolete. Adapting your SEO strategy to these concrete developments allows you to maintain or improve your visibility on Google.
INP replaces FID: the new Core Web Vital to watch
As of March 12, 2024, Google has replaced First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in its Core Web Vitals. This change alters how a page’s responsiveness is evaluated.
FID only measured the delay before the first interaction. INP goes further: it takes into account the actual responsiveness of the page after each click, tap, or user interaction throughout the session. A site that reacted quickly to the first contact but then slowed down could achieve a good FID score. This is no longer the case with INP.
Dashboards and audit tools that still display FID as a reference metric are therefore outdated. To work on this signal, check out the Geekfinity site for SEO and review your reports in Google Search Console, Core Web Vitals section, where INP now appears by default.
Specifically, pages that load heavy JavaScript after the initial display are the most penalized by this new criterion. Interactive forms, complex dropdown menus, and poorly optimized carousels are the first elements to audit.
Large-scale content: what Google considers abusive
The policy updated on March 5, 2024, targets the production of content without original value intended to manipulate results, regardless of the production method. A text written by a human no longer automatically escapes this policy if its intent is purely manipulative.
Google now evaluates two combined criteria: the value provided to the user and the publication intent. A site that publishes dozens of generic articles on related topics without providing expertise or original data falls within the scope of scaled content abuse.
Signals that expose to risk
- Articles that are very similar in structure, length, and tone, published in series over a short period
- The absence of original data, concrete examples, or editorial positions in the content
- A broad thematic coverage that lacks coherence with the actual expertise of the site or its authors
The solution is not to reduce the volume of publication, but to ensure that each published page provides something that the reader would not find elsewhere in thirty seconds.
Expired domains and explicit SEO risk
In March 2024, Google introduced the category expired domain abuse. It targets the purchase of an expired domain to publish content unrelated to its historical theme, with the aim of benefiting from its popularity signals.
This practice was common in link-building strategies and site network creation. It is now subject to a specific spam policy. When acquiring a domain or migrating, checking the thematic coherence between the old content and the new project has become a full-fledged control step.
Checks to perform before exploiting a purchased domain
Analyze the domain’s history using web archiving tools. Compare the theme of the pages indexed in the past with that of the content you plan to publish. If the gap is too large, the historical signals of the domain lose their value and expose you to manual action.
A domain acquired with a continuity editorial logic (same sector, same audience) remains usable. A domain from an old travel site converted into a finance blog is much less so.
Content optimization for search results in 2024
The title tags and meta descriptions remain direct levers on the click-through rate. The title tag should contain the main keyword of the content within its first sixty characters. The meta description, although it does not directly influence ranking, conditions the transition from the displayed result to the click.
Structuring content with Hn tags (H2, H3) helps search engines understand the hierarchy of information. Each section title should include a term that the reader would type into a search engine, rather than an abstract phrase.
Internal linking and crawl depth
Internal linking determines how easily search engines discover and index a site’s pages. Each strategic page must be accessible within three clicks maximum from the homepage. Orphan pages (with no internal links pointing to them) are rarely indexed, even if their content is relevant.
- Link each new article to two or three existing pages covering related topics
- Use descriptive link anchors that reflect the subject of the target page, not phrases like “click here”
- Regularly check for broken links, which dilute the crawl budget without adding value
Natural referencing in 2024 penalizes artificial practices faster than before, whether it involves mass-generated content, repurposed expired domains, or outdated technical metrics. Sustainable gains come from original content published on an up-to-date technical foundation, not from a volume of pages or links disconnected from the site’s actual expertise.
