March 2025 Core Update: the complete analysis by SEOZoom

For the third consecutive year, Google has chosen March to reopen the chapter on algorithmic updates and push towards a new calibration of search results. Officially launched on March 13th and completed in fourteen days, the March 2025 Core Update seems to have caused significant variations in many Italian and international search engine results pages (SERPs): some sites gained tens of thousands of keywords in a few hours, others recorded sudden declines even on strategic queries, while some sectors continue to fluctuate without stable signs of settling. The reactions were immediate and, between those who observe a reduced degree of predictability compared to previous updates and those who point the finger at Google’s ranking choices, the debate is back on. In the middle, the data remains. And the data collected with SEOZoom, before and after the end of the rollout, provides an in-depth reading of the real impacts. In these pages we analyze the behavior of the Italian SERPs, the most important movements, the sites that have gained or lost visibility and the official statements that outline the technical and strategic context.

What was the Google March 2025 Core Update like?

The March 2025 Core Update, in its trajectory of action, inherited the algorithmic revisions released in November and December 2024, but it also opens a new front: in addition to acting on now consolidated components such as semantic relevance and source authority, it seems to have the implicit objective of rebalancing the distribution of traffic between editorial sites, social networks and content generated by users.

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As already mentioned in the presentation, it was the first update of 2025 and followed the previous one by about three months: in general, it didn’t seem as impactful and extensive as other updates, although obviously it is a broad core update and – especially for the affected sites – it was absolutely significant.

In short, it was one of the classic structural interventions to the ranking system of Google, which modifies the evaluation of the entire search index and recalibrates the attribution of visibility at a global level. Compared to more specific or localized updates, these updates affect all sectors, every type of content and any category of site in a cross-cutting manner, without announcing in advance the elements subject to revision.

The usual principles apply: a core update does not aim to correct isolated anomalies or optimize individual technical aspects, because its scope is much broader and involves the general criteria by which Google determines the relevance, pertinence and reliability of content. For this reason, an update of this type can radically change the visibility of a domain even in the absence of changes within the site itself. Signals interpreted as positive by a previous iteration of the algorithm may now lose importance, while elements that previously had a marginal weight may become decisive.

Release timing and rollout duration

The update was announced on March 13, 2025 through official Google channels, with confirmation that it was the first core update of the year. The release lasted exactly two weeks, ending on March 27. This in itself is not an anomaly: Google has already set similar durations for its major updates in the past, although the speed and distribution of the effects can vary enormously between one implementation and another.

In comparison with the two previous updates, which took place between November and December 2024, some interesting operational differences emerge. The November 2024 Core Update, for example, lasted 24 days and stimulated intense fluctuations on several occasions, a sign of a progressive and stratified release action. The December 2024 Core Update, on the other hand, proved to be particularly incisive but also surprisingly rapid – less than six days – leaving an immediate impact on the SERPs.

With its fourteen-day rollout, the March 2025 Update returns to a more “classic” dynamic, but this does not automatically imply less relevance: the release timing should not be read as an indication of the depth of the intervention, but rather as part of the distribution method adopted at that time. The adoption of an average period suggests a balance between changes that are ready to be implemented and other more gradual changes, which may have been activated progressively over the fourteen days.

Objectives declared by Google and official statements

As with previous updates, Google has once again chosen a minimalist approach to communication for the March update, reiterating the same guidelines as in the last two years. The general aim, as stated in the official note, is to improve the quality of search results, showing “content that is increasingly relevant, satisfying and informative for searchers”.

More specifically, Google has clarified that the update involves every type of site, without focusing on particular formats or sectors. The system evaluates the entire index and adapts the visibility of individual pages based on qualitative signals that vary with the evolution of the algorithm itself. For this reason too, sites that see drops in their rankings should not necessarily interpret the movement as a specific penalty: rather, they may have lost visibility in favor of other content deemed more relevant at that time.

Google’s position on the actions to be taken in the event of a drop in results is also important: no technical intervention is explicitly required. The general recommendation is to continue publishing content that is useful, high-quality, relevant, well-structured and user-oriented. However, as we will see later, it is precisely on this point that some criticism has been focused by the SEO community, which calls for greater clarity on what “content quality” really means in an increasingly hybrid search context between web pages and social feeds.

The SEO Tools case: difficulties with Google APIs

To complicate matters (and the interpretation of the dynamics at play) there was also a technical event, coinciding with the central phase of the March 2025 Core Update rollout: around March 19th, in fact, Google modified the HTML structure of its SERPs, generating a series of malfunctions in the automatic data collection systems used by the main SEO analysis tools worldwide.

For many hours – and in some cases for entire days – popular platforms such as Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Semrush and other international services experienced problems in detecting actual organic results, showing incomplete or inconsistent data. This was not a simple momentary disservice, but a structural change in the way Google returns visible information to users, and therefore accessible to crawling and parsing technologies.

In this context, as proudly highlighted by Ivano Di Biasi via social media, SEOZoom reacted more quickly than the rest of the market: having developed its own systems for reading and interpreting SERPs internally, the team was able to quickly reformulate the parsing of the updated pages, restoring data accuracy within a few hours. But the real value that emerged from this technical criticality goes beyond the operational resolution of the problem. The intervention in fact allowed us to observe a particularly significant algorithmic behavior: while the results of traditional websites underwent visible variations and differences in formatting, the links from social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and Pinterest were unchanged in the code, suggesting the use of distinct logics for the management of the two types of content.

Social Networks and Google Search: two separate algorithms?

The evidence that has emerged from the behavior of the new HTML suggests that content from social networks is treated through a ranking system that is independent from the one reserved for standard web documents. This is a hypothesis that several analysts had already considered in recent months, observing the consistency with which elements from platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or Reddit appeared permanently in SERP for certain searches, especially in intermediate positions.

According to data collected by SEOZoom, this content tends to rank repeatedly between fourth and seventh position, with a dynamic that responds more to a logic of inclusion by type of query and format than to a true traditional content evaluation. In other words, a certain portion of the search page seems to be “reserved” for social results, selected based on the intent category but unrelated to the competitive process with classic editorial sites.

This operational division implies that Google may have decentralized the ranking system into two cooperating, but not identical, components: one for the pages of the traditional web, the other for user-generated content within social platforms. The final integration takes place before display on the browser, but the origin of the evaluation signals is, in all likelihood, distinct and modeled on specific parameters.

For those who manage SEO strategies, this observation opens up a not insignificant reflection: competitiveness in organic results no longer concerns exclusively one’s own presence in the domain, but also the ability to preside over hybrid spaces with content adapted to Google’s preferred formats. For certain queries, creating video posts, threads or discussions on social platforms can now offer greater possibilities for visibility rather than focusing on internal pages, no matter how technically optimized they are.

It is in this direction that tools such as Social Opportunities – a feature that has been active for some time now on SEOZoom – take on concrete strategic value. In fact, they allow you to identify exactly the keywords for which there is a high probability of social content appearing in SERPs, drawing an operational horizon that goes beyond the traditional distinction between SEO and social media marketing. In terms of search presence, the two areas can no longer be separated.

SEOZoom data: analysis of the impact on Italian SERPs

The March 2025 Core Update showed a rather complex algorithmic behavior, with a gradual intensification of activity on Italian SERPs that manifested itself with clearly distinguishable timing and methods. The data collected and analyzed by the SERP Observatory of SEOZoom – which monitors the variability of rankings on millions of keywords every day – offer a detailed snapshot of the effects of the update in our country, allowing us to precisely trace the phases of the intervention.

In the period between March 8 and 17, that is to say in the days immediately preceding and following the official announcement of the rollout (March 13), the activity of the SERPs remained mostly contained, with percentages of variation below the historical average. This data initially generated the impression of a slow, not very aggressive, almost imperceptible update.

Starting from March 18th, however, the situation visibly changed. The fluctuations began to manifest themselves more markedly, especially with regard to the Large Variations, which signal significant shifts within the SERP and usually reflect a clear recalibration of the algorithmic signals. The anomalous activity continued and intensified until March 23, the day on which the highest value of the period was recorded: +6.42% compared to the historical average.

In the days immediately following, the behavior of the data seemed to indicate a gradual settling. However, an analysis of the day of March 27th – the exact day of the official end of the rollout – shows that the fluctuations are still ongoing. The values measured show a peak in Large variations (+5.76%) and a significant increase in the sites that have left the Top 10 (+1.81%), accompanied by a fair amount of activity on the first page (+0.41%), while Small variations remain in negative territory (-1.87%).

These data confirm that Google is completing the ranking restructuring phase with movements that are still detectable, a sign that the algorithm continues to adjust the results even after the official communication of the rollout’s completion. It is therefore highly probable that the next few days will bring further small adjustments, especially for highly competitive keywords or in sectors that are already highly unstable.

The most evident fluctuations in the SERP

The metrics monitored daily by the SERP Observatory help to decode the behavior of the search engine during the days following the release of the update. In particular, three indicators have proven to be the most significant for evaluating the intensity and nature of the changes that have affected the Italian SERP:

• Large variations, i.e. marked position deviations for individual pages, rose well above the historical norm as early as March 20th, remaining high throughout the central part of the rollout. The maximum value was reached on March 23rd, with a +6.43%. On March 27th – the final day – we also recorded a +5.76%, a figure that downplays the idea of a net closure and, on the contrary, suggests an update that is still “alive” even after the official end.
• The frequency of sites leaving the Top 10 is another sign of instability. On March 22nd the value reached +1.85%, while on the 27th it stood at +1.81%. These percentages are above the normal threshold and indicate that Google is still reassigning visibility between competing domains.
• The small variations – or rather the minor shifts in the rankings – have instead shown an opposite trend: they have remained constantly below average for the entire period of maximum impact, with negative values such as -2.50% on March 26th and -1.87% on the 27th. This suggests that the update didn’t generate distributed micro-oscillations, but acted in a focused way, with substantial changes affecting specific sites or clusters of search intent.

The overall picture is that of an update that doesn’t work on nuances, but intervenes decisively on categories of content and evident thematic strands. When the frequency of Small variations decreases while Large ones increase, it means that the algorithm is not experimenting with small tests or progressive refinements, but has already identified new patterns deemed adequate, and is applying them consistently.

For companies, publishers and SEO professionals, this interpretation changes the rules of the reaction: we are not dealing with an update that progressively corrects itself, but with an intervention that seems to have already outlined its hierarchies. Those who have lost visibility will find it difficult to hope for a spontaneous return to the rankings. Those who have gained, at the same time, will not be able to consider their position as a point of arrival, because many sectors still show high competition, a sign that the game is far from over.

March 2025 Core Update, who are the winners: the sites that have gained visibility

The update has significantly reshuffled the rankings of organic results in Italy too, rewarding some projects with clear increases in traffic, important ranking updates and significant improvements in terms of keyword positioning and Zoom Authority. The in-depth analysis conducted with SEOZoom allows us to identify not only the individual sites that have benefited, but also some recurring patterns in the favored sectors. Compared to previous updates, this round of changes seems to have reconfigured the perceived value of different types of content, pushing up projects with a strong editorial specialization, a coherent thematic composition and a relevant semantic coverage on information-intensive or transactional queries.

Among the most obvious beneficiaries are specialized information platforms, vertical projects focused on stable thematic niches (such as health, sports, public administration, fashion), but also generalist portals capable of covering high-volume keywords with updated, relevant and well-connected content. Another visible axis once again concerns user-generated content integrated into SERPs by portals such as Reddit, TikTok or video platforms, which continue to expand their presence, often regardless of the textual quality of the content, thanks to their recognized ability to represent authentic opinions or “conversations of public value”.

The list of the fastest growing sites has been ordered according to the absolute variation in estimated traffic detected by SEOZoom with reference to the period before and after the update. For each case, the growth value, the most indicative strategic aspects and the main keywords that explain the change in ranking are reported.

1. Mowmag.com

Among the sites that have benefited most from the algorithmic update of March 2025, mowmag.com stands out. It is an Italian digital magazine that started out with a narrative focus on engines and lifestyle, and has progressively evolved into an editorial container capable of covering specific areas of sports and lifestyle information. According to the analysis with SEOZoom, the site has more than tripled its traffic in just over two weeks, going from an estimated 69,629 visitors on March 6th to 216,053 on March 22nd, with a variation of +210% and a direct impact on the algorithmic perception of the domain’s authoritativeness.

The number of keywords positioned has almost doubled (from 44,052 to 83,154), with a net increase of 39,102 keywords. This data suggests a combination of two factors: on the one hand, an increase in indexing on keywords already covered, probably due to a greater overall confidence; on the other hand, a semantic expansion towards previously marginal or uncovered queries. The resulting effect is a better hold on the intermediate positions of the first page of Google and entry into the Top10 for a series of high-visibility keywords.

This leap forward is also certified by the increase in Zoom Authority, which rises from 52 to 57 (+5), a very significant value on a logarithmic scale, especially for a young and still growing editorial site. Mowmag has therefore consolidated its thematic centrality, which had already been noticed in previous months, but which is now crystallizing with greater evidence thanks to an effective distribution of content in vertical and navigable clusters.

The best performances are found in searches related to the world of sports and motorcycling. The site is now in position 3 for “jannik sinner” (4,090,000 monthly searches), and is also among the top results for related keywords such as “tennis sinner”, “carlos alcaraz” (position 7) or, still in the world of sport, “enea bastianini” (5) or “marco bezzecchi” (8). Mowmag also appears in hybrid queries between information and lifestyle, such as “liliana resinovich” (currently first on Google), and intercepts traffic even on more pop searches related to show business personalities or Gen Z cult figures (e.g. “filippo champagne”, “monica giandotti”, “chris bumstead”).

This mix of sports news and collateral cultural content seems to have been interpreted favorably by the post-update algorithm. In particular, the site’s architecture – agile, thematic, well-structured by sections – combined with a frequent production of articles in line with high-volume informational trends, has probably favored a positive algorithmic reconsideration. The content is presented in a sufficiently accurate way, with a strong narrative rather than encyclopedic approach, capable of filling spaces left vacant by more generalist publications.

2. Startmag.it

The second website with the highest growth in traffic among those analyzed is startmag.it, a native digital publication active in the field of economic-industrial information, with particular attention to the themes of innovation, energy, public policy and institutional dynamics. The March 2025 Core Update produced a significant leap in its level of organic visibility, with an estimated increase in traffic from 238,942 to 565,315 (+136%) in less than three weeks.

At the same time, the number of keywords ranked increased by over 31,000, going from 54,747 to 86,487. Zoom Authority reflects this leap, going from 54 to 61 (+7): one of the most significant leaps recorded in the hybrid digital magazine segment between politics and economic current affairs.

3. FLCGIL.it

One of the most evident winners is flcgil.it, the institutional portal of the Knowledge Workers Federation within the CGIL trade union. The domain proved to be among the most rewarded by the update, with an increase in traffic from an estimated 118,762 to 285,928 visits (+140.7%), driven both by seasonal interest in topics related to schools and ATA (teaching and administrative) staff, and by algorithmic signals of increased relevance for service content.

The number of keywords positioned rose from 34,256 (March 6th) to 47,289 (March 22nd), a net increase of 38%, with a solid presence for key queries such as “online applications” (volume: 1,000,000), “personal application 2024”, “teacher competition 2023”, “school reform” or “retirement latest news”. Many of these terms are characterized by peaks of information corresponding to specific ministerial deadlines.

The increase in Zoom Authority is one of the most interesting data: from 48 to 59 (+11 points), a very significant variation if we consider the almost exclusively institutional nature of the site. The increase in the value of flcgil.it could indicate that Google has adopted a new weighting for public service content taken from official sources, or at least content that is easily verifiable and identifiable as belonging to authoritative collective subjects.

4. Monzatoday.it

With an estimated traffic increase of +92%, monzatoday.it rightfully takes its place among the protagonists of the update. The site, belonging to the Citynews editorial network, went from 141,902 visits to 272,627 in the period immediately following the algorithmic rollout.

In addition to the numbers, the growth of active keywords in SERP is striking: from 75,597 to 117,582 (+55%).

5. Furla.com

The official eCommerce portal of the well-known Italian leather goods brand achieved unprecedented organic visibility after the March update. Furla.com went from 107,980 to 247,115 estimated visits (+129%), with an increase also in the coverage of strategic keywords: from 19,852 to 21,118.

Although the numerical growth of the keywords is limited, the rise in positioning on high-end queries has had much more significant effects. Among the keywords now occupying the top positions are “black shoulder bag”, “yellow handbag”, “black bag”, “blue clutch bag”, all with volumes exceeding 2,000 monthly users and with a clear intention to purchase.

The algorithm rewards here clear signals E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust): recognized brand, proprietary content, direct management of the shop. Zoom Authority has increased from 55 to 58, significantly approaching the standards of the main fashion retail players present in SERP. It is plausible that the clear architecture of the landing pages and the effective structured markup have supported an improvement in the engine’s understanding.

6. Reddit.com

Reddit’s continuously increasing trend in the Italian SERPs has been a stable figure for months now, and has also been perfectly boosted by the March 2025 Update. After a partial reduction in the first week of rollout – with hypotheses of a real decrease or simple technical redistribution – the portal closed with a net gain: estimated +1.2 million traffic, from 7.6 to 8.8 million (+16%).

The most relevant data, however, is the volume of keywords covered: from 5,734,791 to 7,624,667, with a transversal presence in all types of intent, from informational to conversational long tails. Reddit continues to emerge for queries not covered by structured publishers, as well as in discussions about products, reviews, software, alternative health, gaming, cinema, online relationships.

Vertical growth in sectors previously dominated by large portals is striking: health and technology, for example, show an increasingly strong presence of the site in mixed results, with content positioned by native threads without any technical optimization. Zoom Authority is now at 82 (+3 compared to January), a value that suggests a consolidated recognition in the perceived informative value.

7. TikTok.com

Like Reddit, TikTok also benefited from significant growth after the March 2025 Core Update. The estimated traffic for the domain on the Italian market went from about 4,149,509 to 6,758,390 estimated visits (+63%), while the number of keywords ranked exceeded 9.9 million. In the space of a few days, TikTok.com has consolidated its visibility on a growing portion of queries related to music trends, lifestyle content and short-form entertainment, marking its stable presence in Google’s organic results, in parallel with the views obtained on the platform.

The fact that the domain has managed to expand so much despite not being a traditional textual container confirms that Google – as we had already noted in the past months – integrates content from social media into its rankings independently of the classic logic of relevance, trust or SEO structure.

Zoom Authority increased by three points: from 75 to 78. This is a significant result for a project that cannot be analyzed and indexed with standard methods, lacks classic semantic optimization and is based on a closed, app-centric interface – even if it is possible to do SEO for TikTok, as we know! It is likely that the growth was also supported by the relevance of content from Italian creators, visible and accessible via desktop; their diffusion occurs through thematic amplification, with Google intercepting and promoting video clips even for queries that in the past activated informative results, tutorials or step-by-step guides.

8. Video.sky.it

Sky Italia obtains an acceleration effect on video properties, in particular on the video.sky.it subdomain, which grows from an estimated 1,512,386 visits to 2,575,523 (+70%). The index of keywords positioned has recorded a very significant increase: from 337,926 to 519,126 (+53%), strengthening the group’s presence in some thematic macro-areas such as sports, pop culture, entertainment, current information and streaming sections.

The increase in Zoom Authority, up from 67 to 71, confirms an improvement already noticeable during the December update and now confirmed by more solid data. Among the most visible contributions are content that manages to provide immediate answers through video – for example sports highlights, programs on air and interviews – with keywords related to event titles, team names or athletes.

9. Farmae

After a moment of instability observed in late winter – most likely related to an internal recalibration and an irregular peak in December/January – farmae.it returns to growth with stable and solid values. Estimated traffic has risen from 824,465 (post-February data) to 1,269,520 (+54%). The number of keywords also increased again: from 128,861 to 143,980, an expansion that indicates not only recovery, but also an increase in active queries related to daily health, supplements, over-the-counter drugs and beauty.

The domain maintains a pure eCommerce structure, focusing on the optimization of product sheets, integration of reviews and informative collateral content. Google seems to have rewarded the site’s ability to build a coherent semantic grid around each product category – a crucial element in the YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) environment.

10. Dica33.it

The well-known health information portal benefited from a significant increase in visibility, going from 641,713 visits to 1,039,570 (+62%) and stably positioning itself in the Top10 for many recurring keywords related to health and general well-being. The total keywords have increased from 209,253 to 248,274, while the Zoom Authority has increased from 66 to 68: a more modest growth, but still significant for a site that is already well indexed.

Also in this case, a possible re-evaluation by the algorithm of light and informative medical content emerges, focused on clarity and usability, without competing head-on with scientific texts or academic journals.

11. Deghi.it

The website specializing in bathroom furnishings and furnishing accessories for indoors and outdoors obtains an excellent performance, rising from an estimated 470,045 to 700,798 visits (+49%). The growth of the domain coincides with the explosion of visibility for high-conversion keywords in the home sector, such as “bathtubs”, “chandeliers”, “gazebos”, “coffee tables”, “TV cabinets”.

The number of indexed keywords more than doubled: from 103,629 to 217,291. This is an important achievement, which shows how Deghi managed to expand the indexing to long tail variants and related keywords. The increase in Zoom Authority from 61 to 64 supports the hypothesis that the algorithm has rewarded the convergence between technical optimization, the experiential layout of the page (with images, detailed specifications, stock availability and user reviews) and the perceived reliability of the e-commerce site.

Positioning, in particular, is strengthened for many seasonal and competitive queries with a strong link to home design and purchases.

12. Zalando.it

Zalando.it continues to strengthen its position as the absolute reference in the online clothing sector. Compared to other eCommerce, its growth during the March 2025 Core Update is less striking in percentage terms (+2.6%), but qualitatively very significant: in two weeks the site went from 13,970. 130 to 14,336,266 estimated visits, with a parallel growth in the number of keywords positioned, which rose from 643,380 to 728,185 (+84,805).

What is striking in this case is not so much the jump in traffic, but the massive consolidation of presence on some of the most competitive keywords in the entire Italian market. In the top range of queries, excellent rankings are recorded for general terms such as “gucci” (position 4), “jordan” (5), “yamamay” (6), but also for branded and product keywords such as “birckenstok”, “renaissance” and “uniqlo” – often in competition with official websites or specific retailers.

Zoom Authority grows further, going from 79 to 80, strengthening Zalando’s algorithmic status in the context of Italian-language fashion portals. More than just a one-off growth, we can talk about a standard of reliability that has been achieved and maintained, thanks in part to the ability to cover all the informational, visual and transactional variations associated with fashion products.

13. Today.it

The website today.it, part of the Citynews publishing ecosystem, recorded a net increase in visibility after the March 2025 Core Update, bringing the estimated traffic from 3,658,368 to 5,858,845 visits in two weeks (+60%). This is one of the most significant leaps among Italian general interest newspapers that do not belong to the large, long-standing national publishing groups.

The number of active keywords in SERP grew from 826,486 to over 1,259,000 (+52%), with an expansion well distributed among news, popular current affairs, service articles, guides to government benefits and regional news. This improvement should also be seen in the broader context of the growth observed for other portals in the network, such as MonzaToday and MilanoToday, suggesting a possible algorithmic recognition at the level of organizational structure or editorial policy.

Zoom Authority has risen from 74 to 75, bringing the domain close to the 100 most authoritative sites in Italy according to SEOZoom metrics, confirming the good performance of what is already among the mid-tier Italian domains for editorial frequency, indexing speed and coverage of local events.

14. Hdblog.it

HDblog is one of the most read vertical portals in the world of consumer technology. After the negative correction of December 2024, the March 2025 Core Update seems to restore some of the lost visibility, with an increase from 2,491,783 to 3,193,539 estimated visits (+28%). The data also shows a clear improvement in performance for very high-end keywords, such as “YouTube” (position 6), “Amazon” (9), “Google Maps” (10), “Fastweb” (7), “Icloud” (8), “Outlook” (7) or “iPhone X” (on top).

The number of keywords in the top positions increased from 808,551 to 949,019, with a more marked competitive advantage in searches from mobile devices and on queries that activate snippets, sitelinks or knowledge panel graphs, areas in which HDblog has historically had a good presence thanks to a clear structure and well-tagged content.

Compared to the downward phase following the December update, this trend reversal could suggest that Google has recalibrated the treatment of specialized portals, favoring vertical content that is constantly updated rather than low-quality generalist pages or aggregators. Positioning for historical keywords is solid again, and the perceived information value seems to be returning above the threshold: Zoom Authority rises to 73, marking a significant inversion.

15. Ilsole24ore.com

After months of instability, the Il Sole 24 Ore website is once again showing signs of a marked rise in the SERPs: from an estimated 3,087,276 visits in February to 4,879,726 at the end of March (+58%). This is only a partial recovery compared to the peak of almost 6 million in November, but it is the first positive sign on a downward curve that has lasted several months.

What is particularly striking is the growth of the keyword pool: from 550,121 to 929,649 in about three weeks. Some signs point to a revaluation of the “Financial News”, “Macro Data” and “Markets” sections, while the newspaper continues to suffer from more general queries and to lose position in the competition with aggregators such as Google News or Discover.

Among the keywords that have grown we find target queries such as “INPS” (position 4), “Google” (9), “online banking”, “government bonds”, “Kiev” (3). Google once again seems to recognize the Sun as an informative guide on economic and financial topics related to current events – and to a lesser extent on news, analytical comments and digital consumption.

16. Wired.it

In December, Wired.it suffered one of the sharpest falls among Italian technology and culture publications: almost 2.5 million fewer visits between December 12 and 26. The March 2025 Core Update allows the domain to regain some of its visibility, going from an estimated 1,903,635 to 2,594,790 visits (+36%).

The keywords also grew consistently, rising from 563,462 to 851,689. The Zoom Authority returned to 72, rising again after the drop to 71 that had marked the end of 2024.

The recovery was concentrated on vertical keywords of cultural current events and social technology: “tinder”, “harry potter”, “artificial intelligence”. Wired also gains on popular in-depth keywords, such as “spider on the violin” and “movies to see”, an indication that Google has perhaps revised the interpretation of queries from a general audience but with high qualitative expectations.

17. Matrimonio.com

The list of winning sites is closed by the portal matrimonio.com, the absolute reference for the organization of ceremonies and services related to weddings. The site is continuing the growth that began in December 2024, with traffic increasing from 3,608,840 to over 4,200,000 monthly visits (March data), although with lower rates of increase compared to other sectors.

Its strength lies in its depth and thematic consistency: the focus on key words such as “beach weddings”, “wedding planner”, “DIY place card ideas”, “ceremonial dresses” is combined with an SEO-driven structure, with commercial calls to action, localized business profiles and embedded UGC reviews.

The update rewards it for editorial continuity over time and semantic homogeneity: a “useful site” in the most basic sense of the term, today permanently perceived as an informative and vertical solution in the algorithm’s mind. The Zoom Authority remains high and stable at 75, and the volume of active keywords is optimized to extend visibility in a season with a naturally high seasonality.

Overall, the picture that emerges is one of an update that enhances coherent, transparent projects that are well focused on specific information or commercial areas, capable of responding directly to a variety of qualified search intents.

The losers of the March 2025 Core Update: the sites penalized by the update

The analysis of the sites that lost visibility following the March 2025 Core Update highlights an acceleration in the processes of redistribution of rankings, with more marked repercussions on some specific sectors. The drop in traffic observed on various editorial and vertical projects suggests the existence of algorithmic patterns aimed at the relocation of entire thematic blocks, rather than intervention on individual isolated cases.

Particularly striking is the frequency with which long-standing domains are involved, with consolidated editorial structures but oriented towards large volumes and generalist coverage. The downturns also involve highly specialized portals – as in the case of weather sites – or information hubs on evergreen queries, whose loss of visibility seems partly attributable to a rebalancing of the algorithm in favor of more experiential, institutional or community sources.

The recorded penalties do not appear to be random or isolated: in more than one case, the affected domains had already been affected by previous algorithmic updates and are now showing signs of structural weakening in their ability to maintain their positioning. In others, the fall seems more sudden, a sign of a revision of the criteria governing specific queries or entire semantic families. Below is a list of the most affected websites in terms of absolute drop in estimated traffic, according to SEOZoom data.

1. Tripadvisor.it

The well-known portal, a pillar of the global tourism sector, suffers a significant loss, going from over 67 million to an estimated 64.9 million visits (-2.4 million).

Zoom Authority also drops by one point, from 90 to 89.

Although the number of keywords positioned continues to increase – a sign of thematic amplification – the average positions worsen for relevant queries: for example, place keywords (“verona”, “napoli”) and categories (“farm holidays”, “shopping center”, “old wild west”), characterized by high information competition and a strong mix of editorial, visual and social content.

2. Ilmeteo.it

IlMeteo.it is by far the most penalized site in absolute terms, with a loss of over 16 million estimated visits. The drop mainly concerns core keywords such as “Bologna weather”, “Genova weather” or “Cagliari weather forecast”, with shifts of one or more positions, which are however decisive for general visibility.

The portal, which for years has been a point of reference for meteorological research in Italy, undergoes a significant downsizing in this update, with traffic estimated to drop from 60,620,386 to 44,061,855, even though the number of keywords ranked increases from 1,810,972 to 2,110,084, as has already happened for other projects. 855, even if the number of keywords ranked increases – from 1,810,972 to 2,110,084 – as has already happened for other “affected” projects, it’s a sort of expansion with lower performance in the rankings with greater visibility.

The impact is visible in the SERP even to the naked eye: strategic keywords such as “Bologna weather”, “Genoa weather”, “Cagliari weather” continue to generate results, but the position and preference given to other players indicate that the algorithmic weight of this site may have been rebalanced. Zoom Authority drops one point (from 85 to 84).

3. 3bmeteo.it

Even the main competitor in the sector, 3BMeteo. it, also sees its overall visibility reduced: estimated traffic drops from 45,893,902 to 37,223,368 (-8.67 million), despite an increase in ranked keywords (from 592,371 to 796,944), which however do not guarantee the same quality of previous traffic.

The Zoom Authority slightly contracts, from 84 to 83.

4. Aranzulla.it

This is one of the strongest signals of the entire update: Aranzulla.it loses over 5.4 million visits, dropping from 16,870,671 to 11,457,710. For a site that up until two years ago consistently exceeded 19 million, this is a structural decline from which it seems difficult to recover with the current editorial lines.

The number of keywords has increased (from 1,744,319 to 1,924,772), but the content is giving way to more streamlined, less academic and more conversational forms.

The algorithm now seems to prefer Reddit threads, TikTok videos, parallel forums and less homogeneous but more dynamic sources. High-volume keywords such as “youtube”, “icloud”, “outlook”, “iliad” and “amazon” continue to be ranked, but lower down, and the ZA drops from 82 to 81.

5. Trustpilot.it

Trustpilot.it benefited from an extraordinary increase during the December 2024 Core Update, exceeding 23 million visits, but now with the March 2025 Update it has been scaled back: traffic drops to 21,406,969, with a loss of about 2.3 million, although the Zoom Authority remains at 82.

The site continues to be visible on keywords with a high reputational intent (“opinions”, “reviews”, “reliable”), but seems to have lost positions on category keywords and brands related to purchases or comparison sites.

6. Ansa.it

The national news agency ANSA has lost an estimated significant amount of traffic, going from 13,338,537 to 10,777,990, a significant drop in absolute terms, which also involves a drop in Zoom Authority from 78 to 77.

The update focuses on central keywords such as “latest news”, “news today”, “Ukrainian news”, “stock market today” and “Lombardia region”.

The greatest difficulties are seen in generic queries on the first page, where the update seems to have rewarded more contextual content, or content that is more streamlined or organized in visual formats.

7. VanityFair.it

One of the cases of greatest interest for understanding Google’s approach to entertainment information is VanityFair.it, a magazine focused on lifestyle, fashion, celebrities and pop culture. The site’s estimated traffic dropped from 6,786,764 to 5,020,868 visits, losing about 1.76 million accesses (-25.9%).

Although the volume of keywords intercepted remains high (over 1.2 million), their average position is moving away from the most visible areas of the SERP. This erosion mainly affects the range of keywords that historically guaranteed wide exposure and high click-throughs, such as the names of television personalities, seasonal fashion trends, reality shows or events with wide media coverage.

8. IlSussidiario.net

Another emblematic case is that of IlSussidiario.net, which for years has been a hybrid between editorial aggregator, political opinionism and general infotainment. The site lost 721,191 estimated visits during the update period (from about 2,055,027 to 1,333,836, equal to -35.1%), despite a marked increase in the number of keywords positioned: from 501,568 to 715,570.

The decline is mainly concentrated in the lower range of daily queries (e.g. TV topics, who is/how it works, religious news), where the domain seems to be performing less well today compared to more technical or more up-to-date competitors. The Zoom Authority goes from 70 to 69. This is still an important value, but which, in combination with the picture of loss of clicks, indicates a loss of algorithmic trust on a systemic basis. Other generalist publications with a high production but less semantic structuring are experiencing the same type of difficulty.

9. TheWom.it and subdomains

Here we go again: the The Wom group is confirmed as one of the publishing projects most penalized by the update of recent weeks. This is a strategic analysis because it involves at least 3 complex properties – thewom.it (main), healthy.thewom.it (health and wellness) and travel.thewom.it (travel) – and because the domain had already shown signs of progressive decline in previous months.

The main domain, positioned halfway between lifestyle magazine and female-driven aggregate, fell from 891,164 to 723,823 visits, with a decrease of 18.7%.

The number of keywords increased from 110,896 to 123,291, but the drop in average ranking nullified the effect. The keywords most affected by the algorithmic recalculation are related to pop psychology, sexuality, everyday life advice, parenting and managing emotions – topics where Reddit or expert creators appear more “worthy” in the eyes of the algorithm today. Zoom Authority is dropping from 68 to 65. It is now on a consolidated downward trajectory: in August 2023 the ZA was at 71.

The subdomain dedicated to wellness and health drops from 1,588,763 to 1,226,866 visits (-22.8%). Keywords are growing (from 475,447 to 561,242), but the top positions are moving away. Google seems to reward more authorial content here, with explicit experiential signals. Projects such as Dica33, Humanitas, and Fondazione Veronesi are gaining ground, while Healthy also suffers from competition from Reddit and video-TikTok on topics such as symptoms, natural remedies or diet. ZA drops again, from 72 to 69: well below the automatic threshold of “reliable health source” implicitly adopted in the core update.

The travel section is the one most affected. Estimated traffic collapses from 662,119 to 338,835 visits (-48.8%), an all-time low since its opening. Keywords increase from 107,980 to 126,496, but real visibility does not follow. The algorithm seems to punish the undifferentiated: general articles on trivial topics, without personal narration and with little depth, today no longer stand up to comparison with authentic blogs, local portals or vertical creators. Zoom Authority drops from 65 to 62, in a structurally compromised situation.

Google’s statements on the recovery and visibility of creators

In parallel with the implementation of the March 2025 Core Update, the SEO community’s attention was also focused on a series of public interventions by Danny Sullivan, Search Liaison at Google, commenting on the concerns expressed by publishers, bloggers and independent creators penalized by the algorithmic updates of the last eighteen months.

The tension between institutional narrative and the reality of rankings has once again emerged clearly. On the one hand, Google reiterates that it is committed to improving its systems to enhance truly useful content; on the other hand, the lack of a transparent roadmap, the vagueness of time references and terminological ambiguities fuel frustration and disillusionment among those who still see the possibility of organic recovery as vague, despite having invested in quality content.

“No certain date, no guarantee of recovery”. When asked explicitly by some members of the community on X (formerly Twitter) about the “when” of the recovery for the penalized sites, Sullivan replied by clarifying that there are no scheduled deadlines or automatisms in the revaluation process. The reference – circulated in recent months – to the time perspective of “2025” should be read as a probabilistic indication of the maturation time of the internal work, and not as an implicit promise of recovery in the SERP.

In particular, Sullivan explained that the recovery in visibility depends on multiple adjustments to different algorithmic systems that are currently being refined. It is not, therefore, a question of a single switch or a date that will mark generalized trend reversals, but of a distributed action – slow, and in some respects opaque – conditioned both by the technical nature of the platform and the actual state of the sites.

This clarification is in stark contrast to the expectations of many affected sites, which were hoping for a specific update designed to resolve the side effects caused by the September and December 2023 updates – such as the now central Helpful Content System. The absence of binding operational commitments and a public time horizon has further dampened the community’s expectations.

Work in progress, but impact still uncertain

Sullivan also admitted that some “improvement” changes have already been applied in recent months and that others will arrive “in waves” during 2025. However, these corrections do not imply – neither now nor in the future – an automatic restoration mechanism for previously penalized domains.

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Google has identified cases in which structurally correct, well-built sites, with original content and formally in compliance with official guidelines, still continue to perform below expectations. According to Sullivan, this is largely due to the fact that the underlying metrics are guided not only by content analysis, but also by behavioral signals and contextual values that are not yet fully public: perceived user experience, real engagement, comparative informational value, and domain-query relationships.

The degree of opacity in this step is striking. The admission that there are “worthy sites that fail to re-emerge” puts the whole discussion on a different level: the problem is no longer one of “correcting errors”, but of managing a system in which even good work does not guarantee any results.

Google and independent sites: broken promises?

The aspect that has attracted the most attention (and in some cases indignation) concerns the distance between the reassurances expressed by Google in 2024, during the various Creator Summits and live listening initiatives, and the current post-update reality. During those meetings – which were attended by numerous creators, vertical bloggers and managers of small publishing projects – the Search Relations Team had repeatedly hinted that specific work was underway to enhance the value of those who create “real” content, written by competent people, indexed in a clean way and designed for the user.

Sullivan had stated his intention to bring out, over time, “more content from real creators”, distinguishing it from content that is purely optimized for search, generic or lacking an editorial voice. However, the repetition of this promise has not been reflected in the distribution of traffic observed in recent updates. While Reddit and TikTok are now at the top of every ranking, many independent creators are reporting a collapse in traffic, no recovery and difficulties in sustaining editorial projects that began as personal experiments and then matured.

In the most recent series of answers, Sullivan explicitly stated that in the current phase it is realistic to imagine that “not everyone will be able to go back to where they were”. And that “some good content may still not offer the kind of experience that Google, in the context of modern search, wants to highlight”.

In this sense, his words about “good” content that does not lead to interaction are significant: according to Google, even quality content can be surpassed by more attractive alternatives, better interconnected or able to stimulate clicks, time on the site or recognition of the answer. However, it is not clear what a site should do today to demonstrate that it meets these criteria: the official guidelines remain generic.

For many, this is definitive confirmation that the decline that occurred with previous updates will not be automatically compensated for by future changes. And that there is no “guaranteed exit” for now for those who continue to work well, but have been swallowed up by an algorithm that looks less and less at absolute quality and more and more at perceived competence in satisfying dynamic and changing queries.

FAQ and answers to questions about the March 2025 Core Update

The intensity of the impact of the March 2025 Core Update and the lack of specific indications in Google’s official communications have generated numerous questions among publishers, SEO specialists, content creators and website managers. In this in-depth section we respond with the utmost precision and concreteness to the main questions that have emerged in the community, providing operational and interpretative indications based on reliable data, official sources and empirical observations conducted through SEOZoom.

1. How can I tell if my site has been affected by the March 2025 Core Update?

The first step is to compare the trend of organic traffic and rankings between the two weeks before and the two weeks after March 13, 2025, the day the rollout began. The combined use of analysis tools such as SEOZoom, Google Search Console and Google Analytics allows you to accurately identify any loss of visibility. In particular, changes in the number of keywords in the Top 10, traffic curves not derived from seasonality and variations in the distribution of queries by intent should be observed. SEOZoom allows you to segment the impact at the URL and keyword level, clearly identifying which sections have been affected and to what extent, even more precisely with the Time Machine. If the drop coincides with the rollout dates and there have been no technical changes to the site, it is very likely that the update has had a direct impact.

2. What to do if the site has lost positions?

The first useful action is to resist the temptation to act immediately, and instead wait for the SERPs to reach a more stable state. Then it’s necessary to carry out a critical review of the content already published, not only from a formal point of view but also with regards to its actual usefulness for the user, the correspondence between intent and structure and the updating of information, also carrying out a competitor analysis to compare their strategies and responses. It is useful to check for any signs of weakness in loading times, depth of information or the ability to respond to queries in a clear and concise manner. The presence of potentially toxic links that could affect the overall authority of the domain should also be checked. A strategy focused on analyzing the most serious penalized URLs and on improving the quality of strategic ones can be effective in the months following the release.

3. Are social media becoming essential for SEO?

The increasingly widespread integration of links from TikTok, Reddit and other social platforms within Google’s SERPs, often in the most visible areas of the page, indicates that today social media is no longer a separate area from SEO, but a parallel channel that can generate direct organic visibility. With the March 2025 Core Update, Google’s tendency to “reserve” spaces in the results for UGC content or short videos explicitly coming from social ecosystems has been strengthened, especially in the face of informational queries radially built on the need for comparison, opinion or personal account. This suggests that brands and publishers should also include the production and distribution of social content in their SEO strategy, not as a substitute for web pages, but as an accelerator of perceived thematic authority.

4. Is recovery possible after algorithmic penalization?

According to statements made by Google, and in particular by Danny Sullivan, there are no recovery mechanisms for sites penalized by a core update, and no algorithmic correction guarantees a return to previous positions. Some technical or editorial improvements may be enhanced in future updates, but there is no mechanism to ensure proportional restoration. Furthermore, even good quality content may not satisfy the algorithm’s new decision-making models, making it difficult to predict the outcome of any corrective action. Recovery is therefore theoretically possible, but depends on internal site revisions coinciding with the evolution of future algorithmic dynamics.

5. Will the effects of the Core Update stabilize in the coming months?

Based on the patterns observed in previous core updates, it is reasonable to expect a settling phase of the SERPs within 4–5 weeks of the rollout’s completion. However, some rankings may experience further fluctuations in the immediate aftermath, especially when Google introduces undeclared system refreshes. In addition, other major algorithmic updates are expected throughout the year, making the current configuration non-definitive. Stabilization does not mean crystallization: for many sectors it is a transition, not a state that has been reached.

6. Can sites penalized by previous updates still hope for a positive review?

Not necessarily. Although Google has announced its intention to continue working to promote the content of independent creators, in practice this process has proved to be long, fragmented and unpredictable. The most recent public statements admit that many of these sites may never recover the positions they have lost, even if they have not violated any formal guidelines. Hope should therefore be based not on the rhetoric of “algorithmic justice”, but on a careful redesign of the offer, based on authentic, experiential, updated content with measurable engagement signals.

7. If I don’t update the site for a few months, will I be penalized?

No, the temporary inactivity of a site or the absence of frequent updates does not automatically result in a loss of visibility. Google does not evaluate a domain based on the absolute frequency of publications, but based on signals such as relevance, authoritativeness, internal consistency and probable satisfaction of the search intent. In public comments, Danny Sullivan clarified that there is no risk “per se” associated with a slowdown in productivity: quality carries more weight than quantity. A site can maintain its visibility even if it is cyclically inactive, as long as the pages that received traffic are still useful, accurate and superior in depth to the competition.

8. Is AI-generated content penalized?

Google does not automatically penalize content written with the help of artificial intelligence, but evaluates the quality, usefulness and final user satisfaction. If an AI-based article provides accurate, original and well-constructed answers, it can rank like any other. However, generic, copied, predictable or unverified content is more easily identified as “not useful” or “irrelevant”, and therefore downgraded in the rankings. The discriminating factor is not the technology used, but the result obtained. For this reason, those who use AI must invest in human editing, validation and rescoring of the content produced.

9. Does it still make sense to invest in SEO in 2025?

Yes, but the approach required is increasingly complex. Modern SEO no longer coincides with page positioning, but also includes the ability to intercept the intent to find information through multiple channels and formats: optimized texts, videos, social content, reviews, local signals, images and structured data. Today, visibility is an ecosystem, not a single ranking. Investing in SEO therefore means designing multi-level informational experiences, where the strength of the content is just one of the variables in play.