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Large AI Overviews on SERPs are affecting visibility and causing a dramatic decrease in traffic.
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Large AI Overviews on SERPs are affecting visibility and causing a dramatic decrease in traffic.
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Large AI Overviews on SERPs are affecting visibility and causing a dramatic decrease in traffic.
Google’s March Core Update continues to rollout. Patterns are beginning to emerge as reports come in with data from the past week.
Update: Google completed its rollout of the March Core Update on March 27.
Video summary:
Google’s March 2025 Core Update, announced on March 13th and expected to complete its rollout this week, is creating turbulence in search results according to multiple industry tracking tools.
Data from Local SEO Guide and SISTRIX indicate this may be a highly impactful update.
According to tracking data from Local SEO Guide, which monitors 100,000 home services keywords, the week of March 10th showed the highest SERP volatility observed in over a year. This aligns with Google’s official announcement of the March Core Update on March 13th.
SISTRIX data confirms these findings, with its Google Update Radar showing movement beginning March 16th across both the UK and US markets. The company monitors one million SERPs daily to track the update’s impact.
Local SEO Guide identified several clear winners and losers in their tracking data. Sites gaining the most visibility include:
Conversely, sites experiencing the most significant drops in visibility include:
SISTRIX’s analysis revealed additional impacted domains in the UK market, with significant losses for quora.com (-15.76%), vocabulary.com (-10.93%), and expedia.co.uk (-20.60%). Government sites weren’t spared either, with hmrc.gov.uk showing a dramatic 52.60% visibility decrease.
The retail sector has seen interesting shifts. SISTRIX data shows that notonthehighstreet.com experienced a 56.28% visibility increase in UK searches, while uniqlo.com saw a 76.12% gain.
On the negative side, several retailers lost ground, with zara.com dropping 24.00%, amazon.com declining 13.84%, and diy.com falling 7.75% in visibility.
Andrew Shotland, CEO of Local SEO Guide, identified several potential patterns in this update:
Two forums, DIYChatroom and GarageJournal, saw visibility drops despite having experienced a 1,000%+ increase over the past year.
Shotland notes this may not be a direct demotion, but Google is elevating sites like Reddit alongside features like Discussions and Forums widgets and Popular Products grids.
Sites like Bluettipower.com, which appears to have created thousands of programmatic pages, have seen visibility declines. Other sites with “kitchen-sink, made-it-for-SEO” content are similarly affected.
Unlike some updates targeting specific niches, this core update affects sites across various sectors, including retail, government, forums, and content publishers.
Google has provided little information about the improvements to its search algorithm in this core update. The full effects may not be clear until the rollout is complete.
Google’s March Core algorithm update is still rolling out. Search Engine Journal will monitor changes and offer updates as more information becomes available. Please continue sending in your reports.
Featured Image: eamesBot/Shutterstock
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, …
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