Google’s March 2026 core algorithm update concluded on April 8. The search giant doesn’t provide recovery guidelines for businesses whose rankings have decreased. We’re left with search-engine optimizers to create tactics that align with the winners to help losing sites maintain organic visibility.
A just-published study by SEO pro Cyrus Shepard of Zyppy Signal is an example. He analyzed organic search traffic of 400 winning and losing websites over the past 12 months and classified them by business model, content types, creator profiles, and other definable traits. From there, he identified five characteristics of winning sites.
Here are Cyrus’s five features of sites that consistently maintain prominent organic rankings on Google.
Proprietary assets
Of the 400 analyzed sites, 92.9% of the winners own proprietary assets that are difficult to replicate, such as datasets, products, images, or studies.
For example, a fashion ecommerce site may use its user data to report trends in colors or seasonality. A site with extensive product reviews could repurpose them into shopping guides.
Completes a task
According to the study, 83.7% of winning websites help searchers do something: buy, download, or search.
Winning sites tend to help users accomplish whatever they’re looking for. Losing sites may offer meaningful info on topics, but the searcher must go elsewhere to complete the task.
The solution may be a unique product or an interactive tool. For example, a tutorial site could offer interactive tools, quizzes, and workbooks to help students practice math.
Niche expertise
Expertise within a niche was a trait of 75.9% of the winners.
Winning sites tend to focus on a topic in which they have deep knowledge and experience.
Those sites become go-to authorities for specialized subjects. Hyper-specific travel blogs, for example, often outrank global travel brands.
Unique product or service
A unique product or service is a trait of 70.2% of sites that consistently rank well across core updates. Cyrus’s study found that informational sites (news publishers and affiliate sites) lost the most traffic and that offering a product may be the answer.
For example, a recipe site can sell a subscription meal plan, a book, or access to a private cooking community.
Strong brand
A strong brand, a destination site, was a trait of 32.6% of organic search winners. Cyrus found a high correlation between winning in organic search and having a strong profile of branded search terms.
The more searchers query a business’s name, the more that site is a destination and a strong signal to Google. Treat your brand search metrics as a key performance indicator, in other words.
I’ll add one feature for 2026 that Cyrus doesn’t address: sites that rank prominently in organic search offer something that AI cannot easily replicate.
