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Source: GSQI
During the June 2025 Core Update, the WireCutter lost even more visibility than it has been losing:
Google is updating their Reviews Update behind the scenes now (and obviously during core updates) without announcing them.
A lot of queries dropped from the front page to not in the top 100 at all, and overall they lost positions on over 3.6 million queries:
This is one of those situations where you wonder how an article can be worthy of ranking #7 and #10 to not ranking in the top 100, overnight. Then dummies come in talking about "improve your content". Some stuff is simply algorithmic nonsense and that's been the case across the board for informational sites like these.
Glenn Gabe goes on to point out that for the queries they lost or slipped on, this included removing them from the AI overviews sources and suggested articles.
Other broad review sites dropped as well.
Here's some examples of niche publishers that saw gains:
The see-saw behavior between narrow niche sites and huge general-topic authorities continues, albeit more slowly than in the past. This pendulum behavior keeps everyone in a state of survival and chaos, whether or not it actually improves the SERPs or not.
I guess it also goes to show, as we've known for at least 20 years... if a site tanks for any reason other than a penalty, just slap it on a cheap server and let it live. 5 years, 10 years later it might bounce back after Google contradicts itself again.
WireCutter Loses on 3.6 Million Queries
During the June 2025 Core Update, the WireCutter lost even more visibility than it has been losing:
A lot of queries dropped from the front page to not in the top 100 at all, and overall they lost positions on over 3.6 million queries:
Glenn Gabe goes on to point out that for the queries they lost or slipped on, this included removing them from the AI overviews sources and suggested articles.
So What Happened?
It seems two things happened:- WireCutter stopped benefiting from the NYTimes main domain authority finally.
- Google made an attempt to boost niche-based review sites over broadly general sites.
Here's some examples of niche publishers that saw gains:
I guess it also goes to show, as we've known for at least 20 years... if a site tanks for any reason other than a penalty, just slap it on a cheap server and let it live. 5 years, 10 years later it might bounce back after Google contradicts itself again.
