Google Fred Update (8 March 2017): What Changed and How to Recover

The Google Fred update was a large ranking update first noticed around 7 to 8 March 2017. Analyses found that it mostly hit ad-heavy, low-value content sites built to earn from ads or affiliate links rather than to help readers. Google acknowledged updates at the time but later said there was no single "Fred" update from its point of view, so treat Fred as a label for a quality shift, not a named algorithm.

For the wider context, see my full list of Google algorithm updates.

What the Fred update changed

The first theories in March 2017 focused on link quality. That did not hold up. As more sites were examined, the pattern that emerged was about content and monetisation: pages that existed mainly to carry ads or affiliate links, with little original value for the reader, lost visibility.

The typical Fred-hit page, as SEOs described it, looked like this: a short or generic article, several ad units pushing the text down, ads mixed into the content so they were hard to tell apart, and little evidence that the writer knew the subject. Google did not describe a specific algorithm. When asked, Gary Illyes pointed affected sites to Google’s quality guidelines.

The name itself was a joke. Gary Illyes had said that all updates should be called "Fred", and the SEO community attached the name to this one.

Timeline

That mixed record is why I describe Fred as partially confirmed. Something real happened in March 2017, and Google pointed to quality, but it never presented Fred as a distinct system.

Who was affected

According to SEO analyses, the losers were mainly content sites with heavy advertising and thin, monetisation-first content. Many of them reported large traffic drops. The page patterns that fit that description look like this:

• Blogs publishing many short articles on broad topics, each wrapped in multiple display ads.
• Affiliate sites where the content was a thin wrapper around product links.
• Sites where ads appeared before the main content on mobile, so readers scrolled through ads to find the answer.

These are reported observations, not a list from Google. Sites with ads were not hit simply for carrying ads; the pattern was ads combined with low value.

How to tell if the Fred update hit your site

A Fred-style problem has a monetisation fingerprint, so diagnose it by comparing pages by how they earn money, not just by topic.

1. Compare the right dates. In Search Console or analytics, compare the two weeks before 7 March 2017 with the two to three weeks after. Many sites saw the drop within days.
2. Segment by template and monetisation. Group pages into ad-heavy, affiliate-heavy and lightly monetised. If the losses cluster on the heaviest group, you have a strong signal.
3. Measure content against ads. On a phone, how far does a reader scroll before reaching the main content? How many ad units sit inside the article?
4. Read the losing pages honestly. Does each one answer the question better than the pages that now outrank it? Is there anything first-hand or original?
5. Rule out links. Early theories blamed links, so check for a manual action in Search Console. If there is none, links are unlikely to explain a Fred pattern.

How to recover from the Fred update

Gary Illyes’s advice was to read Google’s quality guidelines. In practice that meant two jobs: fix the reader experience and fix the content.

Order matters. Start with the templates, because ad placement changes apply to every page at once. Then work through content by traffic potential, beginning with pages that lost the most. My on-page optimisation services cover this kind of page-by-page rework, and ad-script weight often belongs in a speed optimisation project.

Be patient. Because Fred’s targets fall under Google’s core quality systems, improvements are usually reflected gradually and often around later core updates, not within days.

Is it still relevant today?

Fred was never a standalone system, and you will not find it in Google’s ranking systems guide. Its targets, though, are squarely within Google’s core ranking and quality systems today. Ad-first, low-value pages are still the type of content that loses ground in core updates, so the lessons from March 2017 apply directly.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Search Engine Roundtable: Google Fred coverage
• Search Engine Land: unconfirmed Fred update
• Sistrix: Google updates and algorithm changes
• Ignite Visibility: Google update history

If your content site lost traffic and you suspect ad density or thin content, request a free audit. My SEO audit segments your pages by template and monetisation so you can see exactly where the losses sit.