Google’s March 2026 Core Update Is Brutal - What SEOs Are Seeing & How to Survive

The madness continues. Right after Google's March spam update, they dropped their March core algorithm update. A lot of people thought the spam update was the core update. Core updates are huge. In the SEO community, we see tremendous volatility when Google updates its core algorithms. So, on this episode of the show, I'm going to share what the streets are saying about this update, what the update is, what the streets are saying, and how you can avoid getting hit. seeing a decrease from Google's March core algorithm update. Search engine roundtable. Google March 2026 core update is rolling out. First core update of the year. It was announced early Friday morning. The update is expected to take 2 weeks to complete. Google calls it a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content from searchers of all types of sites. Even though this is the first core algorithm update, like I said, Google just did their March spam update and they had a February 2026 discover Google discover core update. Semrush is giving us a 9.3 out of 10. SER volatility, it is very high. Advanced web rankings, crazy volatile. Cyrix, crazy volatility as well. These are all Google tracking tools. High volatility on Moz. John Mueller, who has become basically the face of Google search, he coordinates Google's search relations effort. He said, "One of the March updates is about spam. One is not about spam. If with some experience, you're not sure whether your site is spam or not, it's unfortunately probably spam." That said, I can't imagine your sites are. So, what are the streets saying? This is the top comment on this search engine roundt post. Okay, they completely shut down all traffic from search, discover, and Google News. It's fantastic. I used to have to work 24/7 for pennies, but now I do it for free. Thank you, Google. You're so kind. Somebody else, when was the last update that helped anyone other than Google? I expect this update to be more of the same, tossing publishers under the bus and degrading the quality of search to boost profits. There is five days left for Google to rake in the money needed to make analysts and shareholders happy. I'm sure that's what this update is all about. To be fair, all the top comments on search engine roundt core algorithm update posts, I don't think I've ever seen a positive [clears throat] top comment on the search engine roundt posts. And there are people who are experiencing who are getting benefits. I shared on X screenshots from Google search console for two properties. I'm going up and up and up for both properties. Charles Float shared how USA Today's listical site is spiking up doing really well. That was during the spam update, but honestly before core updates, there's also a lot of volatility related to the core update. That's what we have seen for many, many, many years now. Joy Hawkins posted on the SEO subreddit. Here comes the March 2026 core update. Joy Hawkins, legend in the SEO community. She's been on the show twice. Her most recent episode was a banger. That was Google is crushing anchor links, the new local SEO link strategy 2026, episode 979. That one did really well. People like that episode. So, she posted about the core update on the SEO subreddit. And she said in regards to somebody asking what are they hitting this time? What will Google hit with this update? Joyce said, "Time will tell. I never really get much useful insights about core updates until a couple of weeks after they're done. That really is accurate. Right now, we're in the speculation stage. People don't really realize the effects until after the dust settles. And in a few minutes, I'm going to share my takeaways for how to avoid getting hit by these updates. Another commenter on the SEO subreddit. The interesting pattern with the last few core updates, the sites gaining ground tend to have one thing in common. Strong entity definition across their domain, not just good content on individual pages. That's cool. What I mean specifically, the model seems to reward sites where the relationship between pages is clear. Tight internal linking with contextual anchor text where the brand's expertise is unambiguous. consistent topical focus and where external signals corroborate what the site claims to be about makes a lot of sense. The sites I've seen lose ground usually have the same symptom. Topical sprawl. A SAS company blogging about productivity tips, remote work culture, and their core product category. Google seems less tolerant of that now. Anyone seeing similar patterns on their end with this one rolling out? I so strongly agree with that. This has been a subject of so many guest episodes on this podcast. Jack-of all trades, master of none. If you don't niche down, at least until you build a lot of authority in that niche, it's likely that you are just not going to perform well with SEO. So, you want to start by niching down and then you can slowly expand your topical authority. You can shape your topical authority. People don't realize that. The way to do it is you start by just mentioning some adjacent categories and then you build out slowly build out those adjacent categories while also building external signals that reinforce you being an authority on these new topics. Those external signals, those are backlinks, those are brand mentions. The thing is, if you're just starting, it's a lot easier to build authority for one topic. You isolate your focus so you're not spreading yourself thin. And then only after you feel like you have dominated your topic and there's usually a lot more money by dominating your topic than trying to spread yourself thin. Once you have completely dominated your topic, that's when you start expanding your topical authority. So you want all of your content to say that you are an authority on this specific topic. And that's what this user means by strong entity definition across the domain. Another commenter said, "In the casino niche, the last update surfaced hundreds of non-GameStop casino pages. By that, I mean articles recommending casinos that are not licensed or legal and blatantly boasting about the fact most of the results are very obscure." I actually had a theory about the eye gaming niche. The most cuttingedge black hat tactics are in this niche. And my theory was, what if Google is actually letting more black hat SEO fly in this niche just to learn what is being done? By letting more black hat tactics fly in this niche, Google can learn again the cutting edge of defying their algorithms and then apply that to the niches where there is more scrutiny. So, real financial niches or health, especially health, typical your money, your life stuff, YM L, even more innocuous things like SAS, just a crazy theory that I have. All right, so here are a few ways that you should be doing SEO to avoid getting hit by an update. Number one, I said this recently, build content as you simultaneously build links. A lot of people will just push out content on their sites, targeting keywords, doing SEO simultaneously do marketing, build links. Number two is if you optimize for backlinks that also bring you traffic, you will s you will get the best links. These backlinks, they won't be the most lowhanging fruit. They won't be the easiest links to get, but they will be the most valuable. The most valuable backlinks will simultaneously bring you relevant traffic. And if you optimize for those links, you are doing two things at the same time. You are doing good marketing and you are getting strong links. And then number three is as you are putting content on your site, targeting keywords. Don't have all of your content sound exactly the same immediately one after the other. So let's say you have the keywords mugs for coffee, mugs for juice, mugs for tea, mugs for water, mugs for celster water. You don't want to put out page after page after page targeting each of these keywords immediately. Instead, you would put out a page mugs for coffee. Then you would put out a a page keep your tea warm longer. Then you would put out a page clear mugs that are machine washable. And then you could put out a page mugs for juice. You don't want these clear signals where you are going after the same types of keywords. These signals say to Google that you are an SEO specific site and that is what we saw got hit during the helpful content update and many subsequent updates. Lily Ray was on the podcast a few weeks ago saying it's quote unquote I think she said too much SEO. That was episode 987, the future of SEO. Lily Ray on Google updates AI search and geo spam. And then just a few days after that, episode 989, Google's helpful content update destroyed the internet. What actually happened? Lars Lofrren basically said the same thing. Too much SEO or too much clear SEO. Because the thing is, if you're putting up these pages, mugs for coffee, keep your tea warm longer, clear mugs that are machine washable, these are all keywords as well. It's just you don't have those clear patterns. When Google sees all of these extremely similar pages, it signals loweffort content that might not be unique to the search intent and to the keyword, which means a worse experience for searchers. That's one of the reasons that it is smart to as you are putting up content have varied content around the same topic. If you want to learn my exact method of SEO where I share my screen, show myself doing SEO, finding keywords, putting up pages for these keywords, structuring my site for these keywords, doing a site audit, building links that is at compactkeywords.com. This is a 13 and 1/2 hour course that I constantly update. I updated it just this week. It is. I think I mean maybe I'm a little bit biased in saying this, but it's probably the best SEO course that's ever been created ever in the history of the world. It is really good and if you haven't checked it out, you are going to love it. Again, that is at compactkeywords.com and this is episode 998 of the Edward Show. 998 days in a row doing this podcast. No days missed. I will be sharing more news from Google's March core algorithm update as it continues rolling out. If you watch this episode on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.