Google March 2024 core update
Google began rolling out the March 2024 core update on 5 March 2024 and confirmed it complete on 19 April 2024 — a rollout of 46 days. The average core update with a recorded start and finish has taken 22.0 days, so this one was 24.0 days longer than usual.
| Type | Core update |
|---|---|
| What it was | Ran 45 days — the longest core update rollout on record. Announced alongside new spam policies including scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. |
| Affected systems | Ranking |
| Since the previous one | 124 days after the November 2023 core update (the average gap between core updates is 171 days) |
| Record | Compiled from the public record. The date is the announced start; no clock time was published. Google announced or confirmed this update. |
What a core update is
A core update is a broad change to how Google's ranking systems assess content overall. It is not a penalty and there is usually nothing specific to fix: pages move because the systems now weigh things differently, and a drop is often a competitor rising.
What to do when an update lands · How long Google updates take · Everything running on 5 Mar 2024
Also running at the time
Overlapping events make a traffic change harder to attribute — worth knowing before blaming this update alone.
About this page
Dates are Google's own, in UTC. The rollout duration and every comparison on this page are calculated here from those dates — Google publishes neither. Coverage is drawn from the headlines this site archived at the time, so updates that predate the archive show none. Corrections are welcome at contact [at] seo-serps.info.