Early data on Google March 2019 Core Update show an interesting pattern

JustinBieberMusic.com seems to be one of the early winners in Google’s latest algorithm update.

Data collected this weekend from providers that track Google search results changes seem to suggest that many of those who saw gains with the August 1, 2018 core update saw negative impacts with the recent March 2019 core update. Meanwhile, those who saw negative impacts with the August 1, 2018 core update, saw gains with the update last week.

To be clear, this was not everyone – but there were plenty of winners and losers that pretty much saw reversals to their gains or losses from the August 1 update.

Survey results. The early numbers from the March 2019 core update survey currently show that almost 60 percent of those 315+ people who have filled out the survey claim they saw a recovery from a previous core update.

Here is that pie chart:

Search Metrics Winners/Losers. Search Metrics provided us with their winners and losers charts, here are the top 15 for each category.

Winners:

• kansas.com saw a 28.49% increase in visibility.
• updateland.com saw a 118.22% increase in visibility.
• buzzfeed.com saw a 35.98% increase in visibility.
• xnxx2.pro saw a 52.11% increase in visibility.
• techcrunch.com saw a 19.21% increase in visibility.
• poki.com saw a 19.87% increase in visibility.
• visitwichita.com saw a 52.75% increase in visibility.
• allmenus.com saw a 41.80% increase in visibility.
• hoursguide.com saw a 113.95% increase in visibility.
• justinbiebermusic.com saw a 95.56% increase in visibility.
• gossipcop.com saw a 133.63% increase in visibility.
• everydaypowerblog.com saw a 18.14% increase in visibility.
• kake.com saw a 32.26% increase in visibility.
• wichitaonthecheap.com saw a 48.78% increase in visibility.
• kwch.com saw a 20.54% increase in visibility.

Losers:

• theatlantic.com saw a 47.69% decrease in visibility.
• vanityfair.com saw a 43.69% decrease in visibility.
• newyorker.com saw a 44.44% decrease in visibility.
• rollingstone.com saw a 20.47% decrease in visibility.
• wired.com saw a 24.13% decrease in visibility.
• time.com saw a 16.92% decrease in visibility.
• harpersbazaar.com saw a 27.94% decrease in visibility.
• smithsonianmag.com saw a 16.27% decrease in visibility.
• hbr.org saw a 41.66% decrease in visibility.
• nymag.com saw a 15.88% decrease in visibility.
• gq.com saw a 28.21% decrease in visibility.
• thedailybeast.com saw a 18.66% decrease in visibility.
• inc.com saw a 17.68% decrease in visibility.
• esquire.com saw a 20.57% decrease in visibility.
• fb.com saw a 22.10% decrease in visibility.

Search Metrics also told us that the “domains that lost visibility now, were mostly winners at the core update August 1st.”

Here is a chart showing sites that won big back in August are now seeing dips from 40% to 15% or so (see table on the right):

This next chart shows sites that lost big back in August are now seeing increases of 50 or over 70%
(see table on the right).

“It seems that Google updated its algorithm primarily for informational keywords and many media pages are affected. Many pages that won August 1st 2018 now lost. Obviously Google reverted some changes and increased the diversity of the domains that now rank for the keywords where the media pages lost,” said Marcus Tober, founder and CIO of Search Metrics.

Sistrix Winners/Losers. Like Search Metrics, Sistrix published its data from measuring the UK Google search results, not the US like Search Metrics provided for us. It paints a similar picture.

Winners:

• draxe.com saw a 49.69% increase in visibility.
• raccars.co.uk saw a 32.57% increase in visibility.
• medicinenet.com saw a 32.06% increase in visibility.
• newsnow.co.uk saw a 30.75% increase in visibility.
• buzzfeed.com saw a 29.65% increase in visibility.
• engadget.com saw a 26.16% increase in visibility.
• schuh.co.uk saw a 24.62% increase in visibility.
• silvergames.com saw a 23.27% increase in visibility.
• bmstores.co.uk saw a 21.68% increase in visibility.
• helpguide.org saw a 20.60% increase in visibility.
• rateyourmusic.com saw a 20.47% increase in visibility.
• medicalnewstoday.com saw a 19.85% increase in visibility.
• expertreviews.co.uk saw a 18.26% increase in visibility.
• metro.co.uk saw a 17.57% increase in visibility.
• digitalspy.com saw a 17.08% increase in visibility.

Losers:

• complex.com saw a 24.93% decrease in visibility.
• everydayhealth.com saw a 22.53% decrease in visibility.
• goal.com saw a 19.72% decrease in visibility.
• health24.com saw a 16.56% decrease in visibility.
• hsamuel.co.uk saw a 13.94% decrease in visibility.
• businessinsider.com saw a 12.31% decrease in visibility.
• ernestjones.co.uk saw a 11.71% decrease in visibility.
• netdoctor.co.uk saw a 11.37% decrease in visibility.
• variety.com saw a 10.94% decrease in visibility.
• last.fm 50.16 saw a 10.76% decrease in visibility.

Sistrix shows reversals.“What’s interesting here is that many of the affected domains (75% of this sample) were also affected by the big updates of 2018,” Sistrix wrote. They are referring to the August 1st and other core updates throughout 2018.

You can read more about their analysis from Johannes Beus of Sistrix on the Sistrix blog.

RankRanger Winners/Losers. The RankRanger team published their winners and losers charts that shows a similar pattern to what we saw above:

RankRanger thoughts. RankRanger also spent the time comparing the size of this update to the August 1st update saying this update was less aggresive than the August 1st update.. They dug into the various verticals and compared how they were impacted individually from this update. Mordy Oberstein from RankRanger added “I don’t see enough evidence, either in the sites per se or at the niche level to consider the March 2019 Core Update to be a reversal of the Medic Update.”

He added “The March 2019 Core Update resulted in a sizable increase in rank fluctuations, just not beyond those seen as the consequence of many other unconfirmed updates. Certainly, as seen, the March 2019 Core Update was significantly less formidable than the Medic Update.”

Word from Google? (yeah, right). Google would not confirm if the March 2019 core update was a reversal to the August 1, 2018 core update. Google did not deny such statements but that any core update would make changes to other previously released core updates is just a logical concept. What’s more, this seems to be backing up just some of the speculation around this Google update – specific to this being a reversal of some of the other Google core updates, including the August 1st update.

A reversal? I would not call this a reversal of the previous core updates. Instead, I’d just call this an update to the previous core updates. Any site that may have been impacted, either positively or negatively, may see changes from a similar update. In this case, Google pushed a core algorithm update and some sites that were impacted, saw changes – but let’s be clear – not all sites that were impacted by previous updates saw any relief with this update.

What’s next? We will continue to gather data in our survey and look for patterns and other signals that may be able to help our readers and the SEO community.

In addition, we will be covering the March 2019 core update in our SEO Meetup at SMX Advanced on the evening of June 3. I hope to see you there.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.