Google’s March 2026 core update finished rolling out on April 8. If your traffic or rankings look different this week, that’s why. The update ran for 12 days starting March 27, and industry tracking found that over 55% of sites saw measurable ranking changes during the rollout. If yours moved, it’s not a glitch and it’s not necessarily something you or your agency did wrong.

Rankings are still settling. Right now is the time to look at your data, not to make changes, but to understand what happened. Our SEO team reviews this kind of data as part of every retainer. If you’d rather have a second set of eyes on your Search Console data straight away, get in touch. We’ll walk you through what we’re seeing.

What Google Did in This Updated

Google runs major algorithm updates, called core updates, several times a year. These are broad re-evaluations of which pages deserve to rank for which searches, resetting how Google weighs quality and relevance across millions of websites at once.

The March 2026 update is the first major core update of the year. Search Engine Land reports the update followed the usual pattern: no advance warning, a confirmation once it was live, then characteristic volatility as rankings settled across industries.

Google describes the purpose of core updates as designed to “better surface relevant and satisfying content.” Google doesn’t publish a breakdown of what changed, which types of sites were most affected, or why specific pages moved which is where the art of SEO comes in. The analysis comes from SEO researchers tracking thousands of sites in real time, plus SEO agencies like us watching our own client portfolios. The picture from this update is fairly consistent across sources: it weighted originality and demonstrable expertise heavily.

How to Tell If the Update Affected You

The place to start is Google Search Console. Open the Performance report, set the date range to the last 28 days, and compare it against the prior 28-day period. You’re looking at two numbers: total clicks and total impressions. What you’re looking for is a clear step-change from around March 27 onward that holds consistently across several days.

If you can see that kind of sustained shift, the update is the most likely cause. Choppy numbers without a clear direction usually mean you’re looking at the settling period that follows every core update. Rankings produce noise for a week or two as the system stabilises, not all of that movement is permanent.

A more useful cut of the data is the Pages tab within the Performance report. Filtering by individual URLs shows you which pages moved and by how much. Focus on the pages that drive your business: service pages, product pages, the pages connected to your enquiry form or sales flow.

Before acting on any of this: Google recommends waiting at least one full week after an update completes before drawing conclusions. Rankings after a major update continue shifting as the system settles, and changes made before that point are based on data that hasn’t finished moving. You risk adjusting a page that was already going to recover, or reading a temporary shift as something permanent.

Traffic up means your pages were assessed as more relevant than your competitors’ for those searches, hold.

Traffic down means another site was assessed as the better answer for those queries, fix it.

What Google Was Rewarding and What It Was Penalising

Pages that pull together existing information, reorder it, and republish it without adding anything new lost visibility quickly. SEO analysts tracking the update report that pages adding original analysis, first-hand data, specific examples, or genuine perspective are holding or gaining position. If your content reads more like a summary of what’s already on the internet than original expertise from your business, you’ve got no chance at ranking.

SEO analysts also point to expertise signals as a consistent differentiator: whether your content demonstrably comes from someone with real-world experience in the topic. Author bios with real names, credentials that match the subject matter, an About page that explains who you are and what you’ve done all help. Making the source of that writing visible and credible matters as much as the writing itself.

On AI-generated content: this update didn’t ban it but the things AI is great at is exactly what makes useless content Google won’t reward. Analysis of the March 2026 update suggests Google’s systems are identifying AI content published at scale without meaningful human expertise on top. These are pages without real editing, original insight, or the kind of specificity that only comes from doing the work.

Distl recently rebuilt the Amped Digital site and SEO, Amped is a digital signage business serving Australia and New Zealand with Subway across 4,795+ ANZ screens. Pages were built around specific product types and search intent, content drew on real installation projects, and case studies documented major deployments. Organic leads grew 56%, product page traffic increased 150%, and Amped Digital now holds the number one position for “Digital Signage Australia”, “Digital Signage Perth” and “Digital Signage Sydney”. Core updates never touch our rankings because the content was never generic.

“With Amped Digital, every page we built drew on real work: Subway screens, airport installations, digital displays built for the Australian climate. That specificity is what earns the rankings, there’s no shortcut to content that only you could have written.”

Jakeb Munn, SEO Specialist, Distl

What to Do This Week

Wait until April 15 before making any decisions. This is Google’s own guidance, not a hedge. Rankings continue shifting for days after a core update as the system settles. Any change you make before the data stabilises means working with incomplete information. You might adjust a page that was already going to recover, or misread volatility as a permanent signal. Check what’s happening, note it, and hold off on acting until Wednesday.
Check your most important pages first. Not your whole site. Focus on the pages that drive leads, enquiries, or sales. In Search Console, open the Performance report, filter by page URL, and look at impressions and clicks from March 27 onward for your top pages. If a core service page has dropped, that’s the priority. A blog post from 2022 slipping a few positions is a different category of problem that can wait a few weeks.
Look at your content honestly. Ask whether the content draws on your expertise specifically, your examples, outcomes, and point of view, or reads like a summary of what’s already online. Check for author bios, genuine perspective, and specificity that couldn’t have come from anywhere else. If the answer is no, that’s the longer-term project, and it’s the kind of work our SEO strategy team builds into content-focused retainers. Starting it now matters. Core update recovery isn’t quick. Historically, sites that make genuine improvements often don’t see rankings move until the next major update, which could be 3 to 4 months away. The businesses starting that work now are the ones who recover first.

Not sure where to start? Our SEO team reviews Search Console data as part of every retainer. Get in touch if you’d like us to walk you through what we’re seeing on your site.

What This Means If Your Rankings Went Up

Some businesses will have come out of this update ahead. The priority now is identifying which pages gained and what they have in common. Your content, your site’s authority, and how Google assessed your pages relative to competitors all moved in your favour.

Don’t change anything that’s working. Instead, look at which pages gained and ask what they have in common: expertise signals, original analysis, topical relevance to your core services. Build more of those conditions.

If you’re gaining ground on these signals, your content strategy is already moving in the direction Google has been heading for several years. That same foundation earns visibility in generative engine results and AI SEO.

Google core updates happen 3–4 times a year. Businesses that navigate these updates share a common profile: expert-led content, a clear point of view, and technically sound websites built around what Google rewards.

Not sure how this March 2026 core update affected your site? Want a second opinion on what you’re seeing in Search Console? Talk to the Distl SEO team. We’ll tell you what we’d do.