SEO & Search News
That core-update 'traffic spike' everyone screenshotted? A lot of it was a glitch.
When Google ships a core update, SEO Twitter fills up with screenshots of huge traffic jumps. Edward Sturm looked closely at the March update and found something important: a lot of that celebrated 'explosive growth' was inaccurate, the result of a glitch in Semrush's data, not real gains.
The signal under the noise
The legitimate trend he found was quieter and more useful: YouTube is showing up more and more in Google's results and in AI citations. That is a real shift worth acting on, and predictably, it is already attracting people trying to game it.
Why we don't react to the screenshots
This is a good reminder of why we do not make decisions off a single tool's dashboard the week an update lands. Tools glitch. Early data lies. We read a change for what it actually moved over time, then adjust. That steadiness is a feature of how we run SEO, not a bug.
Don't trade on the rumor. Wait for the truth, then move. That's marketing made with love.
About the author
About John Frazee
John Frazee is the founder of Love.Marketing, a San Antonio agency that’s helped local businesses grow through search, ads, social, and web for over 25 years. He and the in-house team keep a close eye on how search is changing so their clients don’t have to.
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