March 2025 Algorithm Update Winners & Losers
March 2025 Core Update
Start Date: March 13, 2025
End Date: March 27, 2025
What Google Said About It: This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year. Some have already happened; additional ones will come later.
On March 13, 2025, Google officially began rolling out its latest core algorithm update, marking another significant evolution in how the search engine evaluates and ranks web content. The update, completed on March 27, 2025, brought a wave of changes across nearly all sectors of the web, leaving website owners and SEO professionals scrambling to assess their positions in the search landscape.
Core updates are broad changes to Google’s ranking systems. Unlike product or spam updates that target specific elements, core updates affect the overall structure and priorities of Google’s search algorithms. The goal? To improve the quality of search results and better match user intent by reassessing how content is evaluated in terms of relevance, quality, and usefulness.
According to Google’s own documentation, these updates are not intended to punish websites, but rather to boost pages that were previously under-rewarded. As a result, shifts in rankings are inevitable and often occur at a large scale.
March 2025: A Turbulent Two Weeks
The March 2025 update was particularly volatile. Over the 14-day rollout, SEMrush’s Sensor tool measured an average volatility score of 8.2/10, signaling high levels of ranking fluctuation (I.e., changes in search results). On specific days, the turbulence peaked:
- March 15: 9.2
- March 21: 9.5 (highest volatility)
- March 22: 9.4
- March 26: 9.3
These scores reflect the dramatic nature of the update, indicating major shifts in where websites appeared in search results.
The completion of the rollout was confirmed on Google’s Search Status Dashboard on March 27, following their initial announcement on LinkedIn.
Which Industries Were Most Affected by the March 2025 Core Update?
Not all website categories experienced equal disruption. Some industries were more severely affected than others. Over the 30-day window surrounding the update, the most volatile categories were:
- News: 9.3 average
- Arts & Entertainment: 9.1
- Sports: 9.1
- Business & Industrial: 9.0
In contrast, certain niches remained relatively stable, with significantly lower average volatility:
- Real Estate: 2.8
- Health: 3.8
- Pets & Animals: 3.8
- Books & Literature: 4.1
This disparity suggests that Google’s algorithmic focus may have centered on informational and timely content sectors (such as news and entertainment), while more evergreen, factual topics (like health and science) remained largely unaffected.
Winners and Losers: Dramatic Ranking Changes
Among individual domains, the update resulted in some significant shifts, both upward and downward.
Biggest Winners:
- painfulpleasures.com: +15 positions
- aurorak12.org: +14 positions
- gibsondunn.com: +13 positions
- gastro.org: +12 positions
- lifespan.org: +12 positions
- fineleatherfurniture.com: +11 positions
- btlaw.com: +11 positions
Biggest Losers:
- sai.org.in: -13 positions
- geeksforgeeks.org: -11 positions
- universalorlando.com: -11 positions
- aurorak12.org: -11 positions
- mainemall.com: -11 positions
- house.gov: -11 positions
This level of fluctuation highlights how even well-established sites can experience significant losses if they fail to align with Google’s updated criteria.
Interestingly, aurorak12.org exhibited one of the most unusual patterns, appearing on both the winners’ and losers’ lists, indicating extreme volatility within its rankings. The website’s pages contain very minimal content, and the lack of a content hub (I.e., blog) and brand or authority signals likely played a role in the site’s fluctuations.
If your site has lost visibility following the update, Google’s advice is clear: don’t panic. Core updates aren’t about penalization; instead, they’re about refining how content is interpreted. That means your content may simply be less aligned with Google’s improved understanding of user intent.
Here’s what Google recommends:
Focus on content quality: Make sure your content is original, insightful, and valuable. It should demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness.
Improve E-E-A-T: Google emphasizes experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. Author bios, citations, and factual accuracy go a long way.
Be patient: Recovery from a core update often doesn’t happen until the next one. Continue improving your content and user experience in the meantime.
The March 2025 core update was one of the most impactful in recent memory, with many sites experiencing sudden and sometimes unpredictable changes in rankings. While the dust is still settling, one thing remains constant: quality content, user-centric design, and SEO best practices are more important than ever.
Whether you came out a winner or a loser in this update, the key is to stay adaptable and focused on long-term, sustainable growth. As Google continues refining its algorithms, the best strategy is to build for people, not just for search engines.
Bookmark our Google Algorithm Timeline to stay on top of the most recent updates.