Google updates its algorithm constantly.
Most of those updates are small, quiet adjustments that move the needle slightly for a handful of sites and go largely unnoticed by everyone else.
And then there are core updates.
Core updates are different.
They’re broad, intentional shifts in how Google evaluates content across the entire web.
The March 2026 core update was one of those.
Nearly 80% of top-three search results shifted positions during the March update. Almost one in four pages that were ranking in the top ten fell out of the top hundred entirely.
Clearly Google meant business and was sending out a message to everyone that the old ways don’t work anymore.
Sites built on volume, aggregation, and generic content without a real point of view took the biggest hits.
Job aggregators, comparison directories, broad consumer health sites… significant losses across the board.
What gained visibility were specialist sources.
Niche publishers.
Established brands with real expertise.
Sites that clearly owned their topic and wrote like it.
To strip away the technical language and the pattern is simple.
Google is trying to surface content written by people who actually know what they’re talking about, for audiences who actually need the information, presented in a way that actually answers the question.
That’s it.
The fancy term for this is E-E-A-T. Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google has been talking about this framework for years.
The March update just made the consequences of ignoring it much more visible.
Experience means you’ve actually done the thing you’re writing about.
Not researched it.
Done it.
There’s a difference between the two and it shows up in the writing whether intentional or not.
Expertise means you understand your topic at a level that goes beyond surface coverage. You can go deeper when the topic requires it. You know what the reader actually needs to understand, not just what the keyword suggests they searched for.
Authoritativeness means your site and your name carry weight in your niche. Other credible sources reference you. Your content gets linked to because it’s genuinely useful.
Trustworthiness means the reader can rely on what you’re saying. Sources are accurate. Claims are grounded. You’re not just telling people what they want to hear.
What This Means for What You Write
Write from actual experience whenever possible.
A piece about freelance pricing that comes from someone who has struggled with freelance pricing reads completely differently from one assembled from other articles about freelance pricing.
Google is getting better at telling the difference.
So are readers.
Go narrower, not broader.
The sites that won the March update weren’t trying to cover everything.
They owned a specific lane and went deep in it.
A blog about Filipino freelance writers serving Filipino freelance writers is more valuable to Google than a generic writing blog trying to appeal to everyone.
Answer the real question.
Not the keyword. The actual question underneath it.
What does this person need to understand? What are they really trying to figure out? Write toward that.
Edit like it matters.
Because it does.
Thin content, padded content, content that could have been half the length… these aren’t just aesthetic problems.
They’re signals to Google that the page isn’t pulling its weight.
Core updates will keep coming.
Google will keep shifting what it rewards and how it measures quality. That’s not going to stop.
But the writers who focus on genuine expertise, real experience, and content that actually serves the reader… they tend to come out of core updates better than they went in.
Write like a specialist.
Write from experience.
Write for the reader first.
The algorithm will follow.
