Google recently finished rolling out its latest core algorithm update, and this one was the most volatile yet (by “volatile” we mean there were a lot of changes and some big changes in the search rankings.)
That’s saying a lot, because it feels like every core algorithm update we’ve had for the past year or so has been the most volatile yet. Where will it end?
This time around we saw 80% of URLs in the top 3 search results shift, and one in four URLs ranking in the top 10 fell out of the top 100, which in SEO terms, means they ceased to exist.
Only 20% of the top 3 URLs remained in the exact same position by the time the update finished rolling out.
There was also a March 2026 spam update, which finished rolling out the day before the March 2026 core algorithm started rolling out. No doubt that contributed to the immense volatility we saw with this latest core update.
Table of Contents
Winners and Losers
Without getting into a long list of websites that increased their search rankings and websites that lost ground in search rankings, here’s what they had in common.
Winners
The websites that came out ahead in this latest core algorithm update include:
- Official and institutional websites (think government websites and websites of old, well-respected institutions)
- Specialist and niche (stop trying to be everything to everyone!)
- Established brands (yes, this means it’s going to take time to earn Google’s trust)
- Dominant platforms (despite the general increase in rankings for owned platforms over platforms that gather data from other sources, some of the stronger platforms are performing better in searches after the March 2026 core algorithm update)
This proves you need more than a social media presence to get found online. Yes, social media is a part of SEO, but Google increasingly trusts established brands that have put in the time and effort to publish their own content on their own website that they have maintained for years. It views those websites as more trustworthy than a social media account that could be one of hundreds created by a robot controlled by some faceless company overseas.
Losers
The losers included:
- Dictionary and language reference websites
- Job aggregators like Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter (on the other hand, employer sites and specialized platforms like USAJobs saw a boost in their search rankings)
- Websites focused on broad consumer health took a hit this time around, while clinical, research-driven content from specialist sources benefited.
Among the losers, YouTube had the largest decrease in visibility among the sites included in Semrush’s study of this latest update. That’s fascinating because Google owns YouTube, so it has long been considered an easy way to create content that ranks, but that might not be the case anymore.
On the one hand, it’s surprising that Google would downgrade one of its own platforms in search rankings. On the other hand, it is in line with the broader theme of this update, which seems to be to focus on strong brands and owned media.
How to Create Content Google Loves
It’s one thing to talk about winners and losers in the latest Google core algorithm update, but what made Google decide to upgrade or downgrade certain sites?
Aside from the things already mentioned, such as established brands with their own library of content, Google attempted (yet again) to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Google considers content that offers a unique insight or perspective on a topic to be valuable high-quality content, whereas content that just rehashes what has already been covered on other websites is more likely to be downgraded in the search results. Guess what kind of content you get when you put a prompt into a chatbot and copy and paste it onto your website?
As expected, this latest core algorithm update also implemented stricter filters around AI-repurposed content. Any mass-produced content that was “generated” by AI without significant input from a human expert will get flagged as spam, and Google doesn’t like to direct its users to spam.
Does this mean you can’t use AI to create content? Of course not.
It does mean that, if you do decide to get some help from AI, make sure it’s in the form of help and not having the robot do all the writing for you. At the very least, fact check whatever the robot gives you make sure it’s accurate. Better yet, make sure it’s in line with your brand, uses language and addresses topics that will resonate with your ideal clients, and incorporates your unique perspective on or experience with the topic at hand.
That still requires a fair amount of input from you, so if you need help creating a marketing strategy you can use to direct your AI assistant, let’s talk.
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