By On Wednesday March 15th, 2023 Google released the first Core Update of 2023 also called a “Broad Core Update”. This is the second major announced search algorithm update according to Google this year, the other being a Product Reviews update in late-February.
Core updates like this one generally take a few weeks to roll out completely but your site may see an impact at any point during the update. Google’s standard guidance is that it will happen over a 2 week period, but it is possible it takes a few days or even a week or so longer to finish rolling out. Google’s verbiage around this update, as well as our take on these types of updates for their search engine, is still unchanged from previous “broad core” updates. I recommend thinking about this update and others like it as a refresh of the data Google’s algorithm uses to determine quality and rankings across millions of keywords and how it assess your content overall.
Here is everything we know about the Google Search March 2023 Core Update
March 2023 Core Update Vitals
- Date Started: March 15th, 2023 (USA)
- Date Completed: (estimated) March 29th, 2023
- First Impact Reported: Unknown
- Most Impacted Industry(ies): Unknown
- Most Impacted Site(s): Unknown
- Most Impacted Website Types: Unknown
- Most Impacted Content Types: Unknown
- SEO Change Proven to Improve: Unknown
First major impact reported:
No impact reported yet
March 2023 Core Update Facts
- First core update of 2023
- Released during Spring Break in most of the USA
- Update is NOT site-specific, same as all other known Core Updates.
- This core update may take up to 2 weeks to fully roll out and impact websites.
- Not all websites or documents will get a ranking increase or decrease from this update.
Media Coverage of Google’s March 2023 Core Update
- Search Engine Roundtable – Google March 2023 Broad Core Update Is Live – What We Are Seeing Now
Transparency Report
We add this section when an update may have impacted our clients or our portfolio of websites. Below you’ll find positive and negative impacts to client websites / our websites if those impacts were deemed statistically significant AND if we believe we understand one or more of the reasons behind the adjustment.
No impact yet
Google March 2023 Core Update Help
- If you noticed a spike or drop in traffic starting on Wednesday March 15th or Thursday the 16th, don’t get upset or celebrate just yet. Rankings may fluctuate more than normal during a Core update and data from the Core update might impact other parts of Google’s ranking algorithm such as the Helpful Content classifier
- Do not panic. I know that sounds easy to say, but panic caused by a Google core update rarely solves problems with rankings. If you see a drop planning ahead is prudent, but stay cool and plot out the potential end date for the this to stop rolling out before taking any drastic action.
- If you have been using ChatGPT, GPT-2. GPT-3, Bing Chat, Jasper, or other AI writing tools that are not designed for creating content drafts but instead are creating final draft content, you may want to check the rankings of those pages where this content was used and see if they were impacted during this update. If so, you should rewrite or remove that content.
- If your negative impact is directly affecting transactional pages (i.e. pages that drive revenue for your business) consider a PPC, Facebook/IG, Nextdoor, TikTok, Yelp, or other advertising campaign to make up for lost sales.
- If your negative impact is directly affecting informational content you may want to compare your content to the new top ranking document for those keywords. Review the intent of both documents, look for missing elements in your content, and do entity analysis to see if you can find ways to improve your content for the next update.
- Read Google’s guidance on Core Updates from their website here: What webmasters should know about Google’s core updates
- Hire an awesome SEO agency either one in your local area or one talented at finding and fixing issues related to Google and other search engine algorithm updates *hint* you are reading our website *hint*.