Winners and losers of the March Core Update (so far)

I started tracking the traffic changes for nearly 20,000 websites every day since the start of Google’s March Core update on March 5th.

All ~20,000 sites are monetized with either Mediavine or Raptive ads, and most are niche content sites.

In this email, I’ll share a few of the biggest winners and losers from the list.

The full list with all the data is available to members of my community, Website Growth Mastermind. Join the community and get access to the list here.

Winner #1: Oh, Sweet Basil (144% traffic increase)

This site does everything right:

• Real people behind the site, with multiple articles besides the “about” page that share more of their personal stories

• 100% human-written content

• Original (and real) images

• Huge social following (622K on Facebook, 351K on Pinterest, and 142K on Instagram)

People love this brand, and so does Google:

And this is despite the site being plastered with ads.

Ads aren’t a problem if you get the most important things right and build a brand that people specifically seek out.

Winner #2: Minimize My Mess (59% traffic increase)

This site is very interesting.

It’s a blog about minimalism, but it’s not your typical content site.

Yes, there are plenty of “typical” blog articles, but there are other types of content you don’t usually find on a typical niche site:

• Shop page with downloadables/printables

• Multiple online quizzes and generator tools (see below)

The tools are responsible for most of the site’s traffic, which saw a massive jump at the beginning of the March Core update:

Other things this site does well are the very unique design, the content-filled category pages (they’re not just a list of posts), and the human-written and very authentic/engaging content.

And now, on to the losers after the update…

Loser #1: Hello Music Theory (63% traffic drop)

Just taking a quick look at this site, you’d think it would be doing well.

It’s not just a pure content site trying to make money from ads and affiliate marketing.

It has full-blown courses, study guides, books, practice exams, a members’ area, and even a free tool (an online metronome).

So why the drastic traffic decrease?

I think it comes down to a content problem.

In particular, an oversaturation of mass AI-generated “made for search engines” content.

There are well over 1,000 AI-generated articles targeting very specific keywords like “songs about nature” and “famous american musicians”.

And the actual content itself is very drab. You can tell right away it’s AI generated and void of all personality and opinion.

Why is this a problem though?

I think the disconnect between the purpose of the site and the content it publishes is the main problem. I’ve seen this over and over and over again with sites hit by the HCU and the March Core update.

Sites that didn’t originally have this disconnect and then saw an opportunity to target tons of easy keywords that were slightly related to the original topic were hit especially hard.

Loser #2: MomLovesBest (53% traffic drop)

This site has the same problem as Hello Music Theory.

Mass AI-generated content targeting tons of easy keywords that are only slightly related to the site’s visible purpose.

While traffic dropped significantly at the beginning of the March update, the site still gets nearly a million monthly visitors which is nothing to sneeze at.

Oh, and by the way…

MomLovesBest does a great job establishing EEAT, with many expert consultants listed on the about page, and medical reviewers for most of their articles.

Based on the above sites, it’s easy to see what Google likes and dislikes right now.

For the best chance at succeeding in Google, take inspiration from these winning sites, and avoid doing what the losing sites do.

I only shared 4 examples above, but my spreadsheet with nearly 20,000 sites includes thousands of major winners and losers since March 5th.

You can get the spreadsheet with all tracked sites by joining my community. It’s in the Resources section.

By the way, the spreadsheet is just a tiny perk of becoming a member. See everything else my community offers here.

Before closing, I wanted to share two great resources I came across today related to the recent Google updates:

1. A full review and analysis of the March Core update (with potential recovery steps) from Eric Lancheres - I only skimmed it so far, but already gleaned a lot of new insights.

2. Thomas Jepsen’s thoughts on the HCU - this also has lots of good takeaways and interesting insights. And by the way, Thomas is looking for an SEO Director role. If you have (or know anyone with) an opening, you should get in touch with him. I wasn’t asked to share this - just want to help a Twitter friend.

Reminder: I recently launched version 2 of Site Stats Database, which now includes pre AND post-HCU traffic (AND the % traffic change) for all sites (over 300,000). It’s an absolute goldmine for niche research and competitive analysis. The lifetime plan is currently 33% off. Get it here.

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