Earlier this year, Google rolled out its March 2026 Core Update between 27th March and 8th April. These updates occur several times a year and affect how Google ranks content, often resulting in big shifts in search visibility.
Analysis has since found that nearly 80% of top-three ranking positions shifted during the rollout, and more than 24% of pages that previously held top-10 positions dropped out of the top 100 completely.
Here’s what happened and how you should adapt.
Not sure how Google’s Core Update has impacted your business? Get in touch for a free SEO audit.
What Google Changed in the Core Update
The easiest way to understand what happened is to look at the pattern in the Amsive analysis. It suggests that Google reduced the visibility of platforms that aggregate or discuss other people’s content and rewarded the businesses and organisations that own the content searched for.
Biggest winners included:
- First-party, brand-owned media (IMDB, Amazon, Apple, Spotify and Netflix)
- Sites with clear first-hand authority in their niche (Cambridge.org, IKEA, Hilton)
- Government domains (metoffice.gov.uk)
Biggest losers included:
- Social channels (YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, X and LinkedIn)
- Aggregators (TripAdvisor, Yelp, Expedia, Indeed and eBay)
- Reference categories (Wikipedia)
The data suggests that Google is now sending searchers past the intermediaries and toward the businesses and official sources behind the listings.
What the Core Update Means for Your Sector
Destinations & Resorts
This update hit the travel industry hard with online agencies taking the biggest fall. TripAdvisor lost significant ground, as did Expedia, Booking.com, Skyscanner and Lonely Planet. Meanwhile, direct hotel brand sites gained visibility, as did official tourism and government sources.
For destination and resort marketers, if your strategy depends on being well-listed on TripAdvisor or Expedia, your online presence is now weaker than it was six weeks ago. However, Google has become increasingly likely to surface your content if it’s based on local knowledge in your specific niche.
Food & Beverage
The food and beverage industry is consistent with every other sector in the Amsive analysis. The platforms that took clear hits were the aggregators such as Allrecipes, OpenTable and similar sites that list content created by others.
The winners were sites where a user could access original content or information only that brand could provide. For food and beverage brands, if your listing strategy has leaned heavily on third-party platforms, now is the time to strengthen what you own.
Outdoor Industry
The Amsive data shows AllTrails dropping in this update, another aggregator that lists and reviews. Alongside it, several other outdoor and sport news websites saw noticeable losses.
For outdoor brands, the most relevant finding is what the update says about authority. Across every sector, the winners were organisations with clear, first-hand expertise over a defined territory.
Content that demonstrates first-person experience and specific industry knowledge is now what’s winning. A great opportunity for smaller outdoor brands to gain a better share of the market.
E-Commerce
The retail losers included Nordstrom, Wayfair and a range of fashion aggregators and affiliate-heavy comparison sites.
Google is moving e-commerce traffic toward brand-owned destinations where a shopper can complete a transaction with the original seller.
Retail content built primarily to capture search traffic is less effective, such as product round-ups and comparison guides. Content that carries strong product knowledge is seen as more desirable.
Before You Change Anything
According to Google’s own guidance, website owners should wait at least one full week after a rollout completes before analysing data to make decisions.
You should avoid wholesale content deletions or restructuring based on early data. If pages that fell were your primary aggregator-style or comparison content, that’s consistent with this update’s direction, but confirm the pattern holds before changing or removing anything.
The Bigger Picture of the Core Update
Google is moving away from sites that aggregate and discuss other people’s content and rewarding businesses that are at the source.
The businesses that are now best positioned for search visibility are those that:
- Produce content from first-hand experience and expertise
- Have genuine authority over their specific niche
- Own their customer relationships through their website
If you’re not sure how the March 2026 update has affected your site, get in touch for a free SEO audit.
