Welcome to our April 2025 SEO News Recap! In this edition, we cover March core update observations, the evolving role of AI, spam policy changes, and more! Also, don’t forget to check out our latest installment of ROI Answers to find answers from our experts to commonly asked SEO questions.
Google March 2025 Core Update: Observations and Expectations
The March 2025 Core Algorithm Update started on the 13th and took 14 days to fully roll out. In its launch announcement, Google said, “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.” Then, Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan was asked on X if that was the specific focus of this update. Sullivan’s answer wasn’t exactly a yes or a no.
He explained that there are many changes that Google needs to make to improve those smaller sites’ chances for visibility, and it will take some time to fix them all. Google’s goal is to make substantial progress by the end of 2025, but that won’t guarantee that all sites hit by the September 2023 Helpful Content Update will return to their original rankings. Sullivan reminded us that not all sites deserve to return to their peak positions.
While the update was rolling out, early observations indicated forums and programmatically created content were being devalued, which could demonstrate that Google’s algorithms are getting better at hitting websites using spammy techniques (see below for more details). Based on informal poll results gathered by Barry Schwartz, this appeared to be a “normal” core update with no clear set of winners or losers, as far as types of websites or industries go.
Google Focuses More on Spam Intent Than Spam Content
Google recently tweaked its spam policies documentation to shift the emphasis from spammy content to spammy techniques. The subtle change signals that the search engine’s systems can identify practices meant to trick Google into ranking a website higher in the SERPs when it might not deserve the attention. How do you avoid a manual action for spammy practices? Don’t do them. Instead, spend your resources on creating high-quality, helpful content for your website audience.
Google: Quality Still Better Than Quantity
Google has issued a warning about the growing use of AI-generated content at scale, emphasizing that such practices could lead to significant issues down the road.
“Scaled content abuse,” where large volumes of low-quality, unoriginal content are produced to manipulate search rankings, is the primary concern. This approach not only undermines the quality of search results but also poses challenges for maintaining the integrity of online information.
As we noted in a previous blog post, implementing automated SEO like this could cause keyword cannibalization, dilution of sitewide SEO value, and technical issues. SEO shortcuts don’t work! For the best results, stick to high-quality, original information rather than relying on mass-produced AI content.
Google Updates Frequency of IP Address Refreshes
Google’s Gary Illyes let us know that Googlebot’s JSON file of IP addresses changed from weekly updates to daily updates. This allows website managers to secure their sites more effectively, ensuring that legitimate search engine bots are correctly identified and not inadvertently blocked. If you utilize https://developers.google.com/search/apis/ipranges/googlebot.json, you may need to update your libraries to account for the change.
Google Indexation ≠ Visibility – Focus on Quality & Relevance
Google’s Developer Advocate, Martin Splitt, recently tackled the question many face – “My pages are indexed, so why aren’t they appearing in search results?” – in a YouTube short on Google’s Search Central channel. Along with several other reasons, he also noted,
“It’s either that the query is a bit weird or that the query hasn’t actually been asked that much or that we have other pages that we think will help the user more than yours.”
Understanding Google’s Search Process
Splitt outlined Google’s search process as having several distinct stages:
- Discovery: Google finds your new content. Updating your sitemap helps with this process.
- Crawling: Googlebot visits the discovered URL to analyze its content.
- Indexing: Google analyzes the crawled content and stores it in its vast index, a database of all the information it has found on the web.
- Serving/Ranking: Finally, when a user searches for relevant terms, Google retrieves and ranks the indexed pages to present the most helpful results.
Indexed pages might not show up in search if Google believes other pages are more relevant to user queries or if the content isn’t seen as truly helpful. This underscores the need for high-quality, user-focused content that directly answers searchers’ questions.
Google Assistant Will Be Deprecated, Replaced by Gemini
As Google continues to lean into AI opportunities at every turn, we see signs of favoritism for its golden child, Gemini. In a recent post, Google announced that they will begin rolling out “upgrades” to Gemini for mobile users over the next few months. Google Assistant is slated to be entirely deprecated later this year.
The biggest concern for users is the accuracy of the information they’ll receive from Gemini, since AI is notorious for hallucinating, though Google has made many adjustments to increase citations so that users can validate the outputs more easily.
Study Shows only 0.5% of AI Overviews Citations Come from Homepages
As SEOs, we tend to place a lot of importance on homepages. They serve as your first impression to new users and demonstrate your website’s purpose. But new data from BrightEdge indicates that specialized content on deeper pages of websites are much more likely to be cited in AI Overviews.
BrightEdge analyzed millions of URLs cited by AI Overviews. Here are some quick stats from the findings:
- A whopping 82.5% of citations were linked to ‘deep’ pages (2+ clicks away from the homepage)
- Only 0.5% of citations were linked to homepages
This revelation means that every page on your site now has the potential to be a key entry point. Notably, 86% of citations appeared for a single keyword, often with high search volume. To succeed in this evolving landscape, focus on ensuring all your content is crawlable, indexable, and consistently updated to maximize your chances of being cited in AI Overviews.
John Mueller Explains How Google Uses Search Feedback
Have you searched for something on Google and noticed something wrong with the results (e.g. inaccurate information or a spammy-looking website)? Both on desktop and mobile, you can click the three vertical dots to the right of any result and provide feedback – but does Google actually read it? John Mueller explained recently that Google groups feedback together to help identify issues with the algorithm or potential features to improve it. So, while it’s unlikely you’ll see the results change quickly, it’s always worthwhile to share your feedback to help Google move the algorithm in the right direction over time.
Google and Bing Add More Organic Links to… Google and Bing
In the last few months, we’re not the only ones who have noticed a trend in Google Search: Google is linking back to its own SERPs from the AI Overviews, People Also Ask, and Things to Know features. Not only does this reduce clicks to non-Google websites, but it also inflates Google’s user numbers.
And it’s not just Google; Bing has started linking to itself, too, from its answer snippets. Don’t panic, though; it’s not happening with every answer, and eventually, the user who follows the thread will land on a page with more “blue links” and ads, so SEO and paid search are still worth the investment.
Why does this new practice matter to us? Real estate above the fold is at a premium when it comes to organic results, and when Google inserts itself as a source, we have even fewer opportunities to increase visibility on those pages. We also wonder how long it will take users to get frustrated with the trappings of Google’s web of answers and abandon the tech giant for smaller, simpler search engines. This is why it’s important to write helpful content and implement practices that appeal to all search engines and generative search engines (like Perplexity and ChatGPT).
ROI Answers: SEO FAQ of the Month
Q: Why should my company’s website have a blog?
A: Whether you’re selling running shoes or industrial HVAC equipment, a blog provides a dedicated space on your website to provide helpful, informational content. You can answer user questions, go into more depth about how your products (or services) are designed, and explain how to get the most out of them. A blog also provides opportunities to rank for long-tail informational keywords – the words and phrases people are searching for when they are starting their buying journey – making it a relatively inexpensive form of top-of-funnel search engine marketing.
