Google March 2025 Core Update: What Law Firms Need to Know

SEO

Google has officially finished rolling out its March 2025 core update, titled the “Broad Core Update.”  This is their first update of the year, and our SEO experts have been tracking the impacts on rankings over the past couple of days as this update has been rolling out.

Goal of The March 2025 Algorithm Update

Google’s core updates are designed to enhance search results by surfacing more relevant and satisfying content for users. This update, like previous ones, is aimed at refining Google’s “core systems” to evaluate content better. Google’s official statement on the update emphasizes their push “to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites” and feature more content from creators. 

Key Changes in the New Google Broad Core Update

This latest core update supports Google’s Helpful Content System, which prioritizes content that satisfies user intent while reducing the prominence of AI-generated or overly optimized content. Some of the notable trends observed in the SEO community so far include:

• Affecting Smaller Websites & E-commerce Platforms: Unlike past updates that hit a broad spectrum of sites, this one seems to impact smaller sites more significantly, particularly online shops.
• Targeting Programmatic Pages: Websites that feature a lot of programmatically generated content appear to be negatively impacted.
• Indexing Limitations: Some individuals are reporting a decline in indexed pages. This likely aligns with their push for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) principles – not indexing content they deem “not valuable”.
• Traffic from Bots: Some sites have reported an increase in traffic but with low engagement, indicating a potential rise in bot activity rather than genuine user visits.

How The March 2025 Update Impacts Law Firms

While Google has not provided specific advice for the March 2025 Core Update, following their general guidance on dealing with core updates is always recommended. For law firms specifically, this update presents both challenges and opportunities. A drop in rankings does not necessarily mean that your site has been de-valued or that there is something “wrong” with your website. However, there are things to keep in mind and try to improve listed below. 

RELATED: Our Law Firm SEO Services

What Potential Improvements Could Your Law Firm Make:

1. Create High-Quality, Original Content: Creating unique content, or auditing your existing content, to ensure that it provides real value to users is always the best place to start.
2. Demonstrate Your E-E-A-T: Auditing your site and content to ensure that you demonstrate your experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Additional Actions That Help Ensure Quality Content and Demonstrate E-E-A-T:

1. Building Attorney Profiles: Enhance attorney bios by linking to external profiles, listing awards, and emphasizing credibility. Transparency and authority are now more critical than ever.
2. Emphasizing Authorship: Assign authors to blog content and highlight their expertise to reinforce authority.
3. Expanding Video Content: Given Google’s growing preference for diverse content types, investing in video content may improve visibility and help boost authority as well.
4. Leveraging User-Generated Content (UGC): Encourage and showcase high-quality reviews and testimonials – both on the website and in your Google Business Profile.
5. Enhancing Content Quality: Law firms must ensure their practice area pages are well-differentiated and not templated or repetitive. Keeping legal information up to date is also crucial.

How to Check if the March 2025 Core Update Affected Your Law Firm’s Site

If you suspect that your site may have been impacted by the March 2025 Core Update, the first place to check is Google Search Console. Because Google Search Console provides so much data from Search Engine Results Pages, this is our SEO team’s go-to place to check for signs of a site being impacted. How should you check for signs of an impact?

1. Confirm The Update Has Fully Rolled Out: This update completed on March 27th.
2. Don’t Jump to Conclusions Too Quickly: While you may see ranking volatility, wait at least a full week after the rollout ends before diving into your data. When you’re ready, compare performance from a week before the update started to a week after it ended. This will give you a clearer picture of what may have shifted.
3. Review Changes to Performance: Focus on your top-performing pages and queries. See how they were ranking before versus after the update. Looking for changes in impressions, clicks, and average position can give you an idea of how your site is being affected. Did you see a small dip (e.g., moving from position 2 to 4)? If so, there’s usually no need to make immediate changes—your content is still strong. But if the drop is more significant (say, position 4 to 29), it’s time for a deeper audit.
4. Contact Your Digital Marketing Agency: If you are concerned that your site may have been affected by the March 2025 Core Update, contact your digital marketing agency and start the conversation on how they plan to address the change in your site’s performance. Don’t have an agency? Postali is a full-service legal marketing agency serving the unique needs of attorneys and law firms. Contact us to see how we can help you grow. 

 

What Postali Is Doing

As with any update, some sites will see fluctuations in their rankings, some good and some bad, but our team of expert legal marketers at Postali is keeping on top of these effects and implementing strategies to help keep our clients on top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). 

If your law firm has experienced traffic fluctuations or ranking shifts after the March 2025 Core Update, contact Postali to discuss a tailored marketing strategy for your law firm to safeguard your online presence.