Google started rolling out the March 2026 broad core update on the 12th. I'm seeing wild swings across my portfolio — one site down 18%, another up 30%, both in the same niche.
Posting this as a live thread: what are you seeing, and more importantly, what (if anything) are you doing about it right now?
First: don't make reactive changes mid-rollout. Rankings are noisy until Google confirms completion (usually ~2 weeks). Knee-jerk edits just add noise to your own data.
Use the time to audit instead: consolidate or cut thin/templated pages, strengthen the genuinely helpful ones, and fix internal linking to your best content. Recovery from a core update almost always arrives at the next update — not from a quick fix this week. Document everything now so you can attribute changes later.
Heavy volatility in YMYL since the 12th. Two clients down ~18%, one news site up 30%. Classic broad-core signature.
Same. Sites that gained for us had strong author entities and real first-hand experience sections. Thin aggregators got hammered.
Reminder: don't make permanent changes mid-rollout. Wait for confirmation before drawing conclusions.
Is there anything you can actually do during a core update, or is it just wait?
Semrush Sensor hit 9.1 on the 13th — highest since the November update.
We saw a 2-day dip then a partial recovery. Don't panic on day one — the rollout is genuinely noisy.
Anyone in e-commerce? Are category pages or product pages moving more for you?
@linkbuilder_lee category pages down, product pages flat for us. Looks like templated/duplicate category copy is a target.
Pro tip: segment GSC by page type before drawing conclusions. The aggregate number hides which template actually moved.
+1. Export to BigQuery and group by URL pattern. The story is always in the segments, never the sitewide line.
Recovered a site that dropped last update — it came back partially this time after we removed ~400 doorway pages. So cleanup does pay off eventually.
Is the HCU folded into core now? I genuinely can't tell where 'helpful content' ends and 'core' begins anymore.
@serp_sara yes — since 2024 the helpful-content signals are part of the core system. No separate HCU rollout; it's one assessment now.
Watch your redirect / soft-404 counts too. We saw indexing wobble during the rollout that wasn't ranking-related.
Affiliate sites: the ones with original testing and photos held; the ones rewriting Amazon copy tanked. The pattern is very consistent.
Rollout usually takes ~2 weeks. Mark ~the 27th on your calendar before concluding anything.
For anyone panicking: pull a 16-month GSC export and look at the trend, not the week. Context kills the panic.
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