Data from Google’s March Core Update
I tracked the traffic data for 16,573 sites during the rollout of Google’s March Core Update (which concluded on April 19th).
All tracked websites are monetized with Mediavine or Raptive ads.
Traffic data is from Ahrefs, and is only an estimate.
Here are my findings:
Data for all tracked websites:
| Total Number of Sites | 16,573 |
| Total Traffic March 5th | 1,155,303,646 |
| Total Traffic April 19th | 960,965,873 |
| Total Traffic Loss | 194,337,773 |
| Avg. Loss per Site | 11,726 |
| Avg. % Loss per Site | 17% |
Data for all tracked websites with less than 10,000 monthly visitors:
| Total Number of Sites | 11,593 |
| Total Traffic March 5th | 68,318,157 |
| Total Traffic April 19th | 24,757,805 |
| Total Traffic Loss | 43,560,352 |
| Avg. Loss per Site | 3,757 |
| Avg. % Loss per Site | 64% |
Data for all tracked websites with traffic between 10,000/mo and 50,000/mo:
| Total Number of Sites | 3,211 |
| Total Traffic March 5th | 106,523,326 |
| Total Traffic April 19th | 74,594,898 |
| Total Traffic Loss | 31,928,428 |
| Avg. Loss per Site | 9,943 |
| Avg. % Loss per Site | 30% |
Data for all tracked websites with traffic between 50,000/mo and 1,000,000/mo:
| Total Number of Sites | 1,645 |
| Total Traffic March 5th | 377,098,219 |
| Total Traffic April 19th | 309,732,863 |
| Total Traffic Loss | 67,365,356 |
| Avg. Loss per Site | 40,952 |
| Avg. % Loss per Site | 18% |
Data for all tracked websites with over 1,000,000 monthly visitors:
| Total Number of Sites | 124 |
| Total Traffic March 5th | 603,363,944 |
| Total Traffic April 19th | 551,880,307 |
| Total Traffic Loss | 51,483,637 |
| Avg. Loss per Site | 415,191 |
| Avg. % Loss per Site | 9% |
27% of all tracked sites saw traffic increases (greater than 0%), which leaves 73% with traffic losses.
Here are the raw numbers:
| Total Tracked Websites | 16,573 |
| Websites with Traffic Increases | 4,483 (27.05% of total) |
| Websites with Traffic Decreases | 12,090 (72.95% of total) |
The complete data set is available to members of Website Growth Mastermind.
Please note: Site Stats Database does not yet include post-March Core Update traffic data.
If you have any questions, you can reach me on Twitter/X or leave a reply below.
– Ian, founder of Site Stats Database
This is so interesting. One of my site had approximately 5K visitors before the update and saw an 80% drop in traffic. I suppose even within each bracket there is some linear effect.
Yeah, the sites with less traffic lost a higher percentage on average. I just checked the data for sites under 5,000 monthly visitors. The average traffic loss was 74%, so your site is within that range.