Solis & Kunz: Google Core Update March '26 Analysis

17. Apr.
2 Min. Lesezeit

Key Takeaways:

Solis analyzed the Google March Core Update 2026 for the US and found:
1. Dictionary, translation, and language-reference sites were among the clearest loser clusters
2. Travel discovery and planning visibility looked more affected: Google seems to have concentrated visibility around a smaller set of stronger, better-known travel destinations and platforms
3. Jobs showed one of the clearest source-type splits: broad job intermediaries down, more direct or specialized destinations up
4. Government, public sector, and institutional domains were heavily overrepresented among winners
5. Health was re-sorted by source type: Broad consumer health publishers, provider directories, and general medical explainers looked more affected, especially on high-volume symptom, condition, medication, supplement, and local-provider queries. Improvements skewed more toward sources that were more institutional, more specialized, more clinically anchored, or simply a stronger fit for that specific kind of health need
6. In finance, broad comparison and marketplace style visibility weakened, while stronger financial destinations gained
7. Ecommerce was mixed, but visibility still tended to concentrate around stronger brands and more clearly defined commercial destinations
Kunz' takeaways:
1. Info aggregator and distributors massively lost visibility as Google prevers direct sources
2. Winners of the updates:
  1. Official government websites
  2. well established brands and
  3. well-known market leaders
3. A number of spam websites with low quality AI content surprisingly gained visibility
4. Google seems to strengthen websites with authorityon a macro level. However, it fails on a micro level to reliably exclude spam-networks
Beus (SISTRIX):
1. UGC: while Reddit gained visibility, websites like gutefrage.net as well as x.com or Xing lost points
2. Airport websites win vs. flight comparison portals (official source first)
3. Translation platforms lose as services can be delivered by AI tools (chatgpt.com gains visibility)
von Hülsen (Wingman) saw a "catastrophic" Core Update as multiple quite obvious spam websites gained visibility

Sources: