Google announced the March 2023 core update on 15th Mar. The Search Status Dashboard marked it complete on 28th Mar 2023, after 13 days and 7 hours.
It was the first core update of 2023 and the first since the September 2022 core update. So the SEO community watched it closely.
Data providers tracked by Search Engine Land disagreed on scale but agreed the update was big.
Semrush measured volatility increases 74% higher than during the September 2022 core update. Its sensor peaked at 8 versus about 5 in September.
Semrush also found 8.7% of top-10 results had previously ranked beyond position 20, versus 6.5% for September 2022.
RankRanger read it as roughly as volatile as September 2022 overall. It was among the biggest updates RankRanger had measured, topped only by the June 2021 core update.
Ranking swings inside the top 5 positions were lower, though.
If your site moved in the 15th to 28th Mar window, Google's standing guidance for core updates applies. Audit the pages that lost visibility against the self-assessment questions in the core updates help pages.
Invest in overall helpfulness. Real recovery usually registers at a future core update.
Our recovery guide covers the sequence.
