Alright gang … I know that after the now infamous HCU most of you couldn’t care less about Google (ha ha!) but for me, this one’s been … interesting.
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
I’ve been following the rollout of the March 2026 core update pretty closely. According to Matt Diggity, this was one of the more volatile updates we’ve had in a while. Big swings across the board, especially in the top 3 positions.
A few of the key takeaways being reported:
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Heavy reshuffling of rankings (not just small position changes)
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Aggregator-style and comparison content taking a hit
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Stronger preference for brands and “trusted entities”
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More emphasis on what Google is calling “information gain”
So on paper at least the direction seems pretty clear:
Less tolerance for recycled content, more reward for originality and authority
All fairly standard Google spiel to be fair … and honestly, not that surprising given the direction of travel over the past year.
But here’s the weird part…
Since the update I’ve actually seen a noticeable increase in traffic to some of my more discussion-based parasite platforms 
And this is not even new content…
Some of this is older GPT-4 era stuff. Basic review-style posts. Nothing particularly groundbreaking. If anything, I’d have expected those to get clipped from the index first.
Instead I’ve seen that rankings have improved and keyword visibility has expanded … clicks are also up significantly.
Which, you may have noticed, doesn’t quite line up with the “Google is cracking down on AI spam” narrative … lol
Discussion Authority (yes I made that one up)
It’s very clear that domain authority in the traditional sense still rules the roost. But the nuance we’re now seeing, being driven by all the AI spam destroying the SERP, is what I’d call discussion authority.
In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, Google is defaulting to places where it can be more certain that real human conversations happen naturally. Places where multiple viewpoints exist and where content feels unstructured.
You could even say … more human content. Now there’s a novel idea 
Those environments seem to be getting preferential treatment. Which, from Google’s perspective, kind of makes sense.
Where does it go from here …
Forums and discussion platforms aren’t just “another traffic source” anymore.
They’re potentially prime parasite real estate and relatively easy to find online with search queries like:
intitle:“your keyword” + (“forum” OR “thread” OR “discussion”)
Even better, look for places where you can set up your own ‘community’ and get your publishing groove on 
Feels like one of those moments where the SERPs are telling a slightly different story than the official line.
Oh wait … same as it ever was … lol 