Monthly SEO Roundup

What is a monthly SEO roundup?

A monthly SEO roundup summarises the most important and relevant news, updates, and trends in search engine optimisation (SEO) for a specific month. To save you time, I will cover updates on algorithm changes, industry updates, strategies, and tips on increasing your site’s ranking.

March Month SEO Roundup

March 2025 Core Update

Google released a major update on March 13, 2025, that caused significant shifts in website rankings. There were unexpected drops on desktop and mobile devices early in the month, but they were unrelated to the update. During the actual update rollout from March 14 to 27, there were several spikes in ranking changes.

The update affected different sectors unevenly, with websites in the health and finance industries experiencing the most fluctuations. We recommend relying on Google Search Console for accurate data, as some third-party tracking tools displayed misleading ranking drops.

March 2024 Core Update

Google rolled out Core Update on March 5, 2024, to enhance more helpful content by filtering spammy and ai content. 

March 2024 Spam Update

Google announced a Spam Update on March 5, 2024, aimed to enhance the quality of search results. This incorporated three new policies to tackle increasing levels of inadequate practice:

  • Scaled Content Abuse: The policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale has been reinforced to address instances involving automation.

  • Site Reputation Abuse: Google’s Site Reputation Abuse policy is a powerful tool in the fight against the misuse of reputable sites for spammy purposes. The policy aims to remove low-quality third-party content that exists primarily to manipulate search rankings.

  • Expired Domain Abuse: Google strictly ensures you’re only accessing high-quality content. It actively identifies and penalizes expired sites repurposed as spam repositories and obituary spam.