Something changed after March 2025 Algo Update. The traffic says so.
Some of the sports, entertainment sites lost most of its traffic. Some collapsed.
Several other Indian-owned sites covering global news, especially US sports and entertainment, saw their visibility drop overnight.
We looked at the data from various tools.
We asked around.
No one got a warning. No one got a manual penalty.
But the fall was real. And near-total.
So we’re asking.
Did the March 2025 Core Update quietly redraw the map of who’s allowed to rank?
What we saw
Source:SEMRush
Before March, Indian publishers were running full-stack content engines for global audiences.
NBA coverage from Bengaluru. UFC recaps from Gurgaon. Oscars blogs from Mumbai.
And for years, it worked. The content ranked. The traffic came. The model scaled.
Then it didn’t.
Post-March, the same content, the same pace, the same format but stopped surfacing.
Not just in Top Stories or Discover. In Search. Across the board.
Is it just a quality issue? Or something deeper?
What Prompted the Change
Over the past year, SEO observers have repeatedly asked Google: “Why are Indian domains ranking for US queries?”
SEO expert Lily Ray pulled no punches:
“7 out of 9” sources in an AI Overview for “tips for clear and glowing skin” were Indian sites – some older and clearly not US‑directed LinkedIn+12Tallest Tree Digital+12YouTube+12X (formerly Twitter).
She also noted:
“India, Singapore and Australian pages showing up as sources in US…” LinkedIn.
LinkedIn discussions echoed the surprise:
“It was election season in India with Indian diaspora… searching for local news” LinkedInLinkedIn.
“Despite using US IP, Indian sites come up.” LinkedIn
These weren’t promoted news clips. They were evergreen, localised content and they outranked US sources.
We looked at what changed. Here’s what we found.
Google tightened E-E-A-T. But what’s the new E in expertise?
Does it now mean “Experience from the same geography as the audience”?
Discover became more local. But how local is too local?
Are Indian writers no longer considered credible for US news, by design?
Top Stories vanished for cross-border publishers.
Is there a trust filter being applied silently, based on where your newsroom is?
The answer isn’t clear.
Because Google hasn’t said anything about it.
But the results are speaking loud enough.
We’re not saying Google is wrong.
It’s not wrong to want relevance.
It’s not wrong to reward local coverage in local markets.
It makes sense that someone in New York would prefer seeing an NBA piece from a local journalist.
But was there a need to wipe out the rest of the world’s contributions while doing that? Because what happened in March wasn’t a tweak. It was a reset.
If you run a site from India, here’s what you should be asking now.
- Can you still write about global topics and be discovered globally?
- Will you now need a US-based contributor to rank for US news?
- Do your authors need to live in the country they write about?
- Or has Search quietly introduced a rule it hasn’t explained?
We’re not being alarmist. We’re asking because it’s already happened. The data is public. The drops are real.
Why It Matters
- Indian publishers scaled US-oriented verticals with original reporting, foreign coverage, and global ambition.
- They’ve been effectively de‑ranked overnight, with no transparency, no appeal recourse.
- This signals a tectonic change: global reach may now require location-based editorial infrastructure.
A Direct Message to Google
We ask publicly:
- Did the flood of “why are Indian sites ranking in the US” scrutiny play a part?
- Did you retool E‑E‑A‑T or AI Overviews to implicitly demote non-local content?
- If so, will you provide guidelines for global newsrooms to regain relevance?
- If not, can you explain what exactly broke in March?
So tell us:
Was this update meant to do that?
And if not, what exactly are we supposed to fix?
Let us know if you’ve been affected.
If your team saw a similar collapse.
If your international vertical vanished post-March.
We’re collecting stories. Because this one still doesn’t have an official explanation. And it deserves one.
Final Word
This is not just an SEO algorithm shift – it is a geopolitical editorial shift in search. The internet is still global, but Google may be redefining which voices cross borders.
If you’ve been affected traffic wiped overnight, coverage buried in Discover get in touch. We’re mapping the fallout. And the everyone deserves answers.
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