Google’s March Update Slashes Aggregator Visibility

An analysis from Amsive has revealed that aggregators and user-generated content platforms saw a decline in US search visibility following Google’s March core update, while first-party brand sites, government domains, and original content creators experienced gains.

Lily Ray of Amsive studied over 2,000 domains using SISTRIX Visibility Index data and applied Google Product Taxonomy tags through the DataForSEO API. The comparison covered visibility on March 27, when the rollout began, and April 8, when it concluded.

Amsive interprets this shift as a correction for over-indexed UGC and aggregator content, favoring “the company that owns the thing” over “the platform people use to talk about the thing.”

For context, SISTRIX measures keyword visibility, not organic traffic, and other variables can affect visibility.

YouTube’s Drop Led All Losers

YouTube lost 567 visibility points, the largest single-domain decline in Amsive’s dataset. Ray notes this is roughly 30% bigger than Wikipedia’s 435-point drop during the December core update.

She adds that YouTube’s visibility returned to its level before an early March surge, not to a new low.

Reddit fell 64 points, Instagram dropped 48, and X lost 46.

Category Patterns: Travel, Jobs, And Health

In travel, OTAs and aggregators lost ground while hotel chains gained. TripAdvisor dropped 45 points, Yelp 33, and Expedia 33. Hilton rose 4, Hotels.com gained 3.6, and Trivago added 3.2. NPS.gov increased 9.9, and airport websites saw large gains.

In jobs and education, job board aggregators declined while employer career pages and government sites rose. Indeed lost 18, ZipRecruiter dropped 13. BLS.gov gained 5.4, USAJobs.gov rose 16%, Disney Careers climbed 59%, and CVS Health Careers increased 45%.

Health showed a split, with GoodRx up 55% (9.5 points) and NIH.gov gaining 9.3, but the Cleveland Clinic dropped 12, WebMD fell 9, and Mayo Clinic lost 6.

Google appears to favor authoritative sources over consumer health publishers, though this is interpretive.

Bounce-Backs Complicate The Loser Data

Ray notes that some big losers recovered quickly after the update. Reddit and Indeed saw visibility bounce back, indicating the loser list reflects the update window but not where domains settled.

Connection To Prior Research

The findings align with a Zyppy analysis of over 400 sites from earlier this month. Cyrus Shepard’s study showed that sites offering products or services enabling task completion tend to gain organic traffic.

Ray cites Shepard’s data as supporting, despite different methodologies: Shepard measured correlations with third-party traffic estimates, while Amsive tracked SISTRIX visibility during an update window.

A SISTRIX analysis of German data found similar results: online shops and utility sites lost ground, while official websites and brands were more resilient.

Why This Matters

The data doesn’t confirm what Google changed or why. What it shows is that across travel, jobs, health, finance, and entertainment, the same pattern appeared.

Platforms that aggregate, list, or comment on other people’s content lost visibility, while sites that created or owned the content gained visibility. That’s a pattern worth checking against your own data from the same window.

Looking Ahead

Google hasn’t detailed what changed in the March core update. The rollout window was March 27 to April 8, and Amsive’s data should be read as one visibility snapshot from that period.