Google’s March 2025 core algorithm update now complete
Google’s March 2025 core update finished rolling out on the 27th of March.
As updates go, this one seemed relatively calm. The volatility and fluctuations that normally follow Google updates never materialised.
As is their want, Google is remaining tight lipped over what was updated. SEOs are still trying to determine, and arguing over, what changes were made. It appears the expected blitz on low quality AI generated content never happened. In many verticals, it is not easy to notice any difference in the organic results.
Google’s John Mueller confirmed at the recent Search Central Live NYC 2025 event that Google makes over 4,700 updates to search every year.
If your site has taken a hit during the recent update, then it is worth reading our recent article March 2025 core update – what to do if your site is impacted, or speaking to our SEO team.
Google AI Overviews in UK Search
Sistrix is reporting that Google AI Overviews, or AIOs, are now appearing in the UK for 18% of the keywords that they track. As recently as February of this year, that figure was 4%. This contrasts with Featured Snippets. In August last year when Google started showing AI Overviews in the UK, Featured Snippets were appearing for around 10% of keywords, which has now dropped to just 4%.
This is following the same pattern as the US, where the number of queries that AI Overviews appear for is increasing, while the number that Featured Snippets appear for is steadily decreasing. According to Sistrix’s data, Featured Snippets now only appear for 3.5% of keywords in the US.
The increase in AI Overviews is most noticeable for informational queries. They are still appearing a lot less frequently for what Google classifies as transactionally focused searches.
Data shows Google AI Overviews are going further into websites with their answers
Search Engine Journal cites research shared with them by Brightedge, which has not been published publicly, that Google AI Overviews are increasing the number of deep pages they cite. Deep content is now more likely to be cited than a homepage.
Deep pages normally go into more depth than a homepage, so this is not altogether unexpected. It is also possible that the technology behind AI Overviews is becoming better at crawling and understanding websites.
It helps to highlight the importance of deep content on your site. Updating or refreshing some older content on your site could be enough to see it appear in AIOs or even the organic results.
Online, there is debate about the difference between SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation and GEO, Generative Engine Optimisation. Have they reached the stage where these are now two distinct entities? Or does a proper SEO strategy take into account both traditional search engines and AI generative search engines?
It is also worth noting that Google still has no plans to add AI Overview information to Search Console.
Perplexity expands into e-commerce
Perplexity, the AI powered search engine, wants to start selling directly to consumers through its shopping results. Last year, the company launched a shopping assistant that they hoped would help make it a destination for product recommendations. Now they want to offer companies the ability to start selling directly in their shopping results.
This would make them direct competitors to Amazon and Google Shopping.
Perplexity currently does not take a cut from products that are being sold through its search results and has no plans to start charging.
