Google has now completed the rollout of its first major Core Update for the year.
The update was released on 13 March and completed on March 27, so if you’ve noticed changes in your site’s rankings during that period, it’s likely because of this update.
Let’s take a closer look at the March 2025 Core Update and what it means for SEOs and website owners going forward.
What has Changed?
According to data from Local SEO Guide, which tracks more than 100,000 home service keywords, SERPs have had their most volatile changes during the course of the rollout.
Like always, Google wasn’t very clear on the exact specifications of this Core Update, both before the time of release and after the update was fully rolled out.
Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable did some polling of his own and found that in general, most people didn’t experience any major changes because of the update.
Google March 2025 core update poll 🗳
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 28, 2025
Here are some of the changes that we do know of, and that other SEOs and marketers have noticed:
Declines in Forum Rankings and Visibility
Many forums (excluding Reddit) have experienced major drops in search engine visibility and rankings since this Core Update was released.
SEO strategist, Lily Ray, noted in a recent LinkedIn post that forum sites have experienced significant declines in visibility.
Well, I am seeing very early signs with the March 2025 core update that Google might be reducing the visibility of some forum sites/site sections that shot up over the past 1.5 years.
Programmatic Content Penalties
Websites that rely heavily on mass-generated programmatic pages, especially those made primarily to manipulate search rankings rather than provide genuine user value, are seeing noticeable drops in visibility.
It remains to be seen how this update will affect well-known platforms like TripAdvisor, which leverage programmatic content at scale.
What this Means for SEOs and Marketers
Now that this update is completed, SEOs can take a closer look at their own sites to access the full impact of the March 2025 Core Update.
Content Quality Over Quantity
This update reinforces that quality matters more than volume.
For forum site owners, just having forum discussions is no longer enough to secure strong rankings.
Instead, forum sites will need to start thinking of a content production plan, if they don’t have one already.
For instance, a forum site in the automotive niche can publish relevant blog content on everything related to motoring.
CarTalk is a great example of this, having both a blog section and a community forum where visitors can ask and answer questions.
Websites that have been negatively affected should prioritize enhancing content quality and eliminating low-value or programmatically generated pages.
Most importantly, you should ensure that your content serves real user intent rather than being created solely for search engine visibility.
What to do if You were Negatively Impacted?
If your site has been adversely affected by this update, Google has a list of questions that you can ask yourself about your content and pages:
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
- Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
- Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
- Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
- Is this the sort of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
What this comes down to is simple: website owners need to focus on creating valuable content for people, not just to rank in search results.
