March 2024 Core Update

Google says the March 2024 core update is more complex than usual core updates because it involves changes to multiple core systems, and marks an evolution in how the helpfulness of content is identified. This core update was designed to improve the quality of Search by surfacing more content people find useful, and showing less content created to attract clicks.

1. Organic traffic trends, especially non-branded (Google Search Console)

2. Ranking flux & search visibility for high intent keywords (Semrush, Ahrefs, or similar)—look for ranking movements (higher or lower) for website content

3. Keep a close eye on your most valuable SERPs—look out for any changes in the content that is being ranked higher or lower than before the update

4. URL indexation trends (Google Search Console)

‍

1. Check if the speed or E-E-A-T of your URLs could be a cause of traffic drops. 

2. Make sure you haven’t deleted any pieces of content which were previously earning a high volume of organic search traffic.

3. Make sure your content that used to get traffic is still indexed.

4. Determine if significant changes have been made to your website structure or semantic HTML.

5. Prune your content to remove (or improve) unhelpful or non-unique pages.Monitor & track changes made to your website.

6. Track the changing relevance (perceived intent) of keywords related to your content.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do about traffic losses after a Core Update.

‍