Breaking News - Google Releases First Confirmed Algorithm Update of 2025

Google launched the first confirmed Algorithm Update of 2025 yesterday - March 13th, 2025. This is the first confirmed Google Algorithm update of 2025 - and the first Core Update since December 0f 2024. Google said that this will take up to 2 weeks to roll out. A list of all previous confirmed updates can be found on the Google Search Status Dashboard.

SERP volatility has been heated, especially over the last 2 or 3 weeks and 'we' were overdue for a Confirmed Core Update. SERP volatility was not as heated this week, as the last week of February or the first week of March, but is elevated as of the SEMRush sensor this morning.

Google announced this on their Google Search Status Dashboard, and on LinkedIn yesterday mid-morning - From Google's release on their Google Search Central account:

"This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year. Some have already happened; additional ones will come later."

Lot to unpack there - Seems like this core update is HEAVILY focused on serving up content - that is more diversified from more publishers. Maybe this will solve some of the quality issues and some of the publishers that were heavily hit from previous Helpful Content and Core Updates?

One thing to note is that looking at Reddit.com in SEMRush, it looks like they have seen a +107% increase in reddit.com showing up for queries in AI Overviews - in just the last 7 days or so. They have seen an increase in over 50% visibility in AIO in the last 30 days, and up over 60% in the last 90 days. Reddits AIO spike seems to align with last week SERP volatility increase. The Top 3 Reddit threads that saw new AIO were interestingly related to Hair, Car Brands, and Health/Diet/Fitness/Food related.

Additionally, it seems as reddit.com shows up for more and more queries in the People Also Ask (PAA), and AIOs SERP features, their appearance and visibility in the Discussion and Forums SERP feature is decreasing - down -24% since December.

One trend the SEO content Goblins have noticed is that the previous 3 or 4 core updates from Google - each time - the percent AI Overview display on mobile and desktop have increased substantially - and this seems to be the case again.

Also, something website owners should be aware of is check your crawl stats, and indexing visibility in Google Search Console - many of the previous core updates I have seen confirmed indexing with Google before, during, or after a Core Update rollout - Specially the August 2025 Core Update had a huge indexing issue - that I still dont think got enough attention. Something seriously broke then - and it took to the end of the December 2024 Core/Spam updates for some sites to recover.

So what should website owners do now that the March 2025 Core Update has landed? In short - nothing - yet! Let's see how this update goes and once the dust settles then evaluate your site before and after, and which pages/queries were most affected, along with changes in SERP feature visibility.

On top of that - let's see if Google releases a second fast follow core and or spam update after this one finishes out --- some previous patterns when we have gone long periods with no updates - Google launches a series of confirmed updates all at once - and Google said this year they expected to have more frequent and consistent core updates. I suspect we will again have a few updates prior to the May Google I/O conference, then another lull in confirmed updates through the summer, before Google gears up their search algorithms for the holiday season - which we usually see a flury of confirmed updates starting in the 2nd half of August through up to Cyber Week.

Remember, Core updates change how Google evaluates content - so the long game here will still be for website owners to make meaningful on-page and on-site content improvements - focusing on people first content - that is helpful for the user - that aligns with user-intent - and provides a great user experience - and demonstrates E-E-A-T. Continuing publishing really great, high quality content, that aligns with users in your industries intent - is the best way to future proof your website and any adverse Algorithm affects.