Google March Core Update Complete: Here's the Winners and Losers

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Spencer and Jared cover all the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and share their opinions and insight. Then they share some very interesting and inspiring side hustles they’re working on, and they wrap things up with some weird niche sites.

They jump into things with the news that Google’s March Update is finally complete! 

It finished rolling out on April 19th, and Spencer and Jared discuss the update in general, how long it took, and why its conclusion might not have been announced by Google until later. 

They talk about Google’s original ambitions with regard to the update and the feedback form they created as well as the site reputation abuse update that’s going to get underway.

They also discuss why nobody has recovered from the Helpful Content Update, whether Google even knows how someone might recover, and what this all means.

They move on to discuss the winners and losers from the March 2023 Core and Spam Updates, looking at different types of traffic losses and naming some surprising sites on the list as well as looking at some of the winners.

Of course, Amazon, Reddit, and YouTube come up, as do dictionary sites, Etsy, and Quora.

Moving on, they share an article on HouseFresh about how it no longer appears in Google Search and how Google is killing independent review websites. 

They show the article’s graph, which reflects a giant 91% decline in traffic, and discuss interesting topics it covers, such as the rise of Forbes in Search and keyword swarming.

Spencer and Jared then share a public plea from Marie Haynes for Google to help publishers hit by the update. 

Why is this unusual? How does Jared summarize the situation?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. 

He shares his earnings for the last 30 days and talks about his future plans for it. Although this project provides passive income, Spencer actually gave a highly detailed presentation as part of his Niche Pursuits Community program where he talked about all the work that went into the side hustle in the beginning. 

Jared then goes on to talk about his Amazon Influencer side hustle, talking about the new videos he’s uploaded in 2024 and his total earnings for March and April.

How did he do? How do his stats measure up to Spencer’s?

He also talks about his most recent newsletters side hustle, which of the 2 is getting the most traction, his Facebook page lead generation strategy, and his current number of email subscribers.

Tune in to hear more about his strategy.

As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Secret Fan Base, which takes a closer look at the story and clothes from well-known brand Banana Republic. 

As the clothes are now more mainstream and mass produced, the site covers its original safari style and is created by a group of original fans.

Although it doesn’t get a ton of traffic, the site has a unique story and is a true labor of love.

Jared shares his site, Passport Waiting Time, and shares some of the site’s interesting aspects, like a forum. This DR27 site is ranking for 2k keywords and gets 3k in organic search traffic per month.

They discuss potential strategies the site could use, its current monetization, and why they think the site wasn’t impacted by Google’s updates.

That concludes another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

We hope you learned about the latest events in the space and that you’re feeling inspired by the conversation.

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