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Google’s Fred Update Explained and Recovery Methods

Author: Insights: Google Algorithm Updates Updated: December 17, 2024 Reading Time: 4 min

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Google has released algorithm updates throughout the years to give its users the best search engine experience. These updates help Google weed out bad, spammy, and unhelpful sites so that the best sites jump to the top of their SERPs. These calculated changes have kept Google reigning as king of search engines. Google’s Fred is just one in the long line of algorithm updates that take out bad sites and bring the best to the top.

Launch Date: March 8, 2017

Debuting in Spring 2017, Fred was originally an “unnamed” update. However, Fred isn’t a singular update but a catchall term used by SEO experts to refer to all of Google’s unspecified updates. Moving forward, Google isn’t announcing new versions of the algorithm, so you probably won’t even know there’s been a Fred update unless people are talking about it online.

What Google’s Fred Update Impacted

Because it’s unlikely that you’ll be aware of an update, the best way to determine if Fred has hit you is to see if multiple sites were targeted and affected. If that’s the case, chances are, there’s been an update. If not, your site may have some issues. If your site has the following hazards, you’ll want to address them and make changes.

  • Ad-heavy – A site that is primarily ads—especially if those ads are ill-placed, pop-ups, or for spammy sites—will be subject to serious downranking. Because users hate ads and want solutions, not more ads, when they visit your site, having too much advertising throughout your pages will frustrate your visitors—and Fred.
  • Content-driven – After Fred rolled out, many affected sites were affiliate-driven or blogs created to get high traffic numbers and then redirect to a different location. Now, that’s not to say that simply having a lot of content on your site, even in blog form, is wrong. But you need to be sure that your site proves helpful and isn’t just a means to show ads to users. These places don’t provide users with the solutions they’re looking for; they exist to generate page visits and revenue for themselves or other sites.

How The Fred Update Works

In short, the Fred update does what all Google updates do: it weeds out sites with low-quality content or those that provide terrible user experiences so that they rank low—or not at all—on the SERPs. Specifically, Fred targets sites that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines by having a disproportionate amount of ads and areas that seem to know the tricks of SEO but don’t provide quality content. Though locations aren’t penalized, they are downranked so that users don’t have the chance to come across them when searching.

How to Adjust Your SEO Strategy and Recover

Balance ad-to-content ratio

Because one of the major red flags of the Fred update is when a site has an abundance of ads, this is one of the first things you’ll want to address. Visitors shouldn’t be overwhelmed with ads when they visit a page on your site. They should never have to scroll down your page to get to your content. So keep ads above the fold to a minimum. Your site should first and foremost provide value through your content, and advertisements should not overtake your pages.

Don’t duplicate content.

Google can quickly determine if you’re using the same content across multiple pages on your site. Save yourself the heartache of being downranked, and don’t use duplicate content, regardless of how successful it has been in the past. Instead, invest in fresh, original content, so your users stay happy and Google keeps your rankings high.

Cultivate your site’s authority

Because Fred punishes sites that exist primarily to make money from ads, you want to go above and beyond to prove that this is not the case with your site. Do what you can to legitimize yourself in the eyes of Google. Backlink to other trusted and authoritative sites and get similar sites to link to you. We’ve done a deep dive into how you can bolster your site’s expertise, trust, and authority. Following our outlined steps will boost your site’s legitimacy and drive your rankings.

Maintain your site

SEO is constantly competing, and Google’s algorithms constantly change to provide the best user experience possible. That means you’ll need to continually audit and edit your site to ensure your content is relevant, helpful, and timely. 

Conclusion

Like most of Google’s updates, it’s easy to avoid being targeted by Fred. Create great content to provide the best solutions to your users’ problems. Put in the work it takes to build a clean, user-friendly site with an SEO strategy that will drive traffic your way. When you do these things in line with Google’s webmaster guidelines and follow our advice above, you have nothing to worry about.

Additional Google Update Resources