Our SEO expert Emilie Amaral shares the latest news and updates across SEO:
Google’s March 2025 Core Update
The March 2025 Google Core Update began on 13th March and was rolled out by 27th March. Early observations from SEO tracking tools such as Local SEO Guide and SISTRIX have revealed significant volatility in search rankings, marking this update as one of the most volatile seen in the past year.
The update appears to have had a particularly notable impact on sectors such as home services, health, and finance, with some websites experiencing sharp increases or decreases in their rankings. The retail sector has seen interesting shifts. SISTRIX data shows that notonthehighstreet.com experienced a 56% visibility increase in UK searches, while uniqlo.com saw a 76% gain. Several retailers lost ground, with zara.com dropping 24%, amazon.com declining 14%, and diy.com falling 8% in visibility.
Brands are advised to monitor their sites closely for any changes.
Key trends so far include Google devaluating sites with forum content and chatrooms, and sites with programmatic content are also seeing visibility declines. This core update has been seen to affect sites across multiple sectors including retail, government and content publishers.
As with other core updates, there is no specific remedy for ranking drops. Websites that experience declines are encouraged to focus on improving their overall content quality and authority to enhance their chances of recovering in future updates.
Why we care: Understanding these changes is crucial for dealing with website ranking changes and ensuring high positioning on SERPs. By keeping up with these updates, we can better interpret performance data and apply it effectively. Furthermore, these insights provide a clearer understanding of SERP visibility and traffic changes, enabling improvements to page optimisations.
Google’s New AI Mode Overview
Google’s new AI Mode, which is currently available as part of the Search Labs experiment, significantly alters how search results are presented. This mode incorporates AI-driven responses for a variety of search intents, providing more personalised and location-aware results. For non-local queries, such as “online courses” or “subscribe newsletter,” local context is now integrated, reflecting a shift towards more contextually relevant responses. However, for certain queries related to specific sites like DuckDuckGo, Gmail, or YouTube, traditional blue links are still displayed, suggesting that Google maintains reliance on conventional search results for some sites.
The AI Mode also affects how results are displayed for commercial or informational queries. For example, searches for terms like “laptop brands” generate longer AI responses resembling blog posts, often with multiple citations. There are noticeable differences in citation patterns between desktop and mobile results, with desktop outputs featuring more citations. Furthermore, the prominence of thumbnails has increased, and images are now optimised and cropped based on keywords, although some pages may still lack thumbnails. This shift in search result presentation has important implications for SEO, as traditional blue links are now more prominent, and citations play an increasingly important role in ranking. Websites with historical authority are likely to benefit from this new dynamic. Unlike AI Mode which refers to the broader integration of AI in Google Search, AI Overviews are specific AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of the search results for a quick answer to a query.
On another note, Google rolled out AI Overviews in EU regions, meaning AI Overview results are now also available in Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
Why we care: This information is important for eCommerce brands as Google’s AI Mode changes how search results are displayed, with AI-driven responses replacing traditional blue links. Brands must optimise for local context and personalised results to stay visible, especially for geographically relevant products. The rise in prominence of images and thumbnails means optimising product visuals is crucial for attracting clicks. Additionally, citations now play a larger role, so eCommerce brands should focus on building authoritative, well-cited content to maintain strong rankings in this evolving search environment.
Google Updates Structured Data Requirements For Return Policies
Google has updated its structured data guidelines, now requiring e-commerce sites to specify the country to which their return policies apply. This must be done using the new returnPolicyCountry field within the MerchantReturnPolicy schema. The change aims to ensure that return policy information is correctly recognised and displayed by Google, providing clearer and more accurate details for users.
E-commerce sites must update their product structured data to include this new field, alongside other existing fields like returnPolicyCategory, merchantReturnDays, and returnFees. Google’s updated documentation offers examples on how to correctly implement the return policy information, emphasising the inclusion of country-specific return details.
Why we care: This information is important to e-commerce brands as failure to comply with these new requirements could impact an e-commerce site’s visibility in Google search results, since structured data plays a crucial role in search appearance and the display of merchant information. Therefore, it is essential for e-commerce sites to ensure their return policy markup is properly implemented to maintain search visibility.
Do Reviews Still Matter? Study Looks At Changing Consumer Behaviour
A recent BrightLocal report reveals that consumer review behaviour has changed significantly over the past 15 years. Consumers are less concerned with achieving perfect five-star ratings and the recency of reviews. There is also an increased willingness to write reviews, reflecting greater online engagement with local businesses.
The report highlights that consumer research peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since declined. Consumers are now favouring newer platforms for posting reviews, suggesting that businesses should focus on authentic customer experiences and diversify their review strategies across different platforms.
Why we care: This is particularly important for e-commerce brands as the report highlights the shift in how reviews are used in decision-making. With consumers less focused on perfect ratings and recency, businesses can focus on gathering authentic, genuine feedback rather than striving for flawless reviews. Additionally, the trend towards newer platforms suggests that e-commerce brands should diversify their review strategies and engage customers across multiple platforms to maintain credibility and trust.
Author: Emilie Amaral
Published: 31 March, 2025
