How can I tell if my site was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update?
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I am trying to determine if my website was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update. Based on the various articles I have been reading, I do not believe my niche (software) was impacted. I see a very small tick up on search console and google analytics, but it is well within the normal range. Where else should I be looking to see if we were impacted?
Thank you!
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Great, thank you !
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The only semi-consistent story we're seeing is some minor reversals from the August 1st update, but even that's not clear. I'd say that, if you were hit by August 1st, I'd pay closer attention, but that's about as strong a statement as I'd make.
In general, unless there's something really obvious, like an error in Google Search Console, then you're looking at traffic changes and ranking changes. Both can have not only seasonal but day-of-week and even hour-by-hour variations, so it's important to track any change over time.
In this case, it did look like the March 12 core update rolled out in 1-2 days, followed by a relatively quiet period of algorithm flux, so I don't think this is a sustained roll-out. If you were hit, you'd be seeing it by now, I suspect. That said, note that ranking changes may take longer to see, depending on how often your data is updated (we're weekly in Moz Pro).
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