Data providers: Google March 2025 core update had similar volatility to the previous update

The Google March 2025 core update finished rolling out over a 14-day period, starting on March 13, 2025, and completed about 14 days later on March 27, 2025. This March core update took about a week longer than Google’s December 2024 core update, which started December 12, 2024 and completed about 6 days later on December 18, 2024.

Please understand that if a core update impacts a site, it can result in a huge change for that site’s search visibility. So, I do not want to diminish any core updates, including the March core update; those could have been really big for you or the sites you manage.

Data providers on the Google March 2025 core update

Semrush. Semrush (our parent company) was the first to send us data that seemed to show that the Google March 2025 core update had similar volatility than the previous core update, the December 2024 core update. Keep in mind that the December 2024 core update was more volatile than the November 2024 core update, based on the data.

If you glance at the Semrush Senor, you can see the overall volatility the tool reported over that time period:

Mordy Oberstein, who sent me the data from Semrush, told me the two were of “similar in size” when comparing the volatility. He sent me this chart showing the volatility of the past two core updates, broken down by vertical. It shows the peak volatility numbers were pretty similar between the two updates:

If you look at overall ranking volatility change comparison, you can see that the Health sector saw a much bigger change, for some reason:

But when you compare this to the baseline rank volatility, both the December and March core updates were within very similar ranges, Mordy Obertstein told us. “There’s a mere .1 difference between the two,” Obertstein added. Obertstein said he has a theory, which he will share at his session at SMX Advanced, on why he thinks that this update hit different verticals differently.

When you dive into the top ten results, you can see a notable change in what ranking changes there were between these two past core updates:

Similarweb. Similarweb’s SERP Seismometer showed the spikes in volatility cooled down with the March update. You can see it get a bit more volatile on March 13th, 14th and 15th but then start to cool again as the core update rolled out.

Darrel Mordechai from SimilarWeb told us the March 2025 core update was not the most volatile core update they’ve seen and compared to the December core update, it showed “similar levels of volatility.”

Here is a chart showing the core update volatility by average position change for the past core updates, as documented by Similarweb:

Here is when you zoom in comparing the March 2025 and December 2024 core updates, they are super close:

The current update showed slightly lower fluctuations in the top three positions but increased volatility across the top five. Here is where you can see that in this chart:

When you compare it by vertical or niche, you can see the volatility the March 2025 core update caused across the health, finance, retail, travel and finance industries. You can see the finance industry showed the highest levels of fluctuation, particularly in the top five results. In contrast, the travel industry experienced notably low volatility in the top three positions.

seoClarity. The folks at seoClarity also sent me some winners and losers reports, showing the biggest winners and losers from February to March 2025:

Sistrix. The folks over at Sistrix posted a detailed post of winners and losers and more analysis. They sent me an updated US chart showing the biggest movers but check out their detailed post over here.

Other tools. There are a lot of Google search ranking volatility tools. Here is what they looked like after the core update finished rolling out and over the course of the update:

Mozcast:

Algoroo:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Accuranker:

Cognitive SEO:

Wincher:

Mangools (looks broken?):

Sistrix:

Data For SEO:

SERPstat:

Industry. The initial rollout seemed to kick in within a few days after the update was announced. Some sites saw big swings both up and down, in terms, of ranking improvements or decline. But this update did not seem as widespread as some previous core updates, where it had a wider impact on a more diverse site of sites. That is not to say this update was not big for those who were impacted by it – it 100% was very big for those sites.

During the update, some of the tracking tools were tripped up by some Google Search result page changes. That may make it hard for some to track the impact of this update. But you can use Google Search Console to see your impact for your site and see position changes for your most popular keywords.

Then, we saw some additional volatility spike at the tail end of this update.

What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. Google has not really given much new advice here.

• There aren’t specific actions to take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages.
• Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
• Google said you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change would be after another core update.

In short, write helpful content for people and not to rank in search engines.

• “There’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking as well, we strongly encourage reading our creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help page,” Google said previously.

More on Google updates

You can read more of our coverage in Search Engine Land’s Google Algorithm Updates history.

Why we care. While the data above shows how sites in general are doing with the last core update, it does not represent how your individual site did with the update. If your site was hit by this past update, it can be devastating. If you were hit by previous updates and so no improvement with this update, then again, devastating once again. But some sites saw big improvements.

Feel free to compare this to our December core update report.

We hope you saw improvements with this March 2025 coe update.