March was a challenging month — organic sessions fell 22%, largely driven by ranking losses on six key product pages following a Google algorithm update on 14 March that targeted thin content. Paid search held broadly steady. The short version: we know exactly what happened, we have already started work on the fix, and we expect recovery through April and May.

The narrative below explains the cause in detail and sets out the specific remediation steps already underway. We want to be direct with you: March numbers are not where we want them, but the cause is identified and the path forward is clear.

Organic sessions fell to 11,200 — down 22% from February's 14,400. The decline is concentrated: six product category pages account for 87% of the lost traffic. These pages lost ranking positions between 14–18 March, consistent with the timing of Google's site authority update that penalised pages with limited original content depth.

The affected pages are the bathroom suite category, wetroom category, and four shower enclosure sub-category pages. These were identified within 72 hours of the drop. We have already begun content remediation — two pages have been substantially rewritten and resubmitted to Google Search Console for indexing. The remaining four are scheduled for completion by 15 April.

All other organic traffic is stable. Brand search held flat, direct traffic is up 3%, and the blog channel is unaffected.

Google Ads remained largely stable despite the organic losses. CPA increased from £34.00 to £36.80 — an 8% rise driven primarily by competitive pressure in the 'bathroom suite' keyword cluster, where two new competitors entered the auction in mid-March and pushed CPCs up by 14%.

We have responded by tightening keyword match types, pausing the three lowest-quality broad match terms, and shifting budget toward exact and phrase match to protect efficiency. We expect CPA to return to the £34–35 range in April as these changes bed in.

The traffic drop on 14 March coincides precisely with Google's March 2026 core update, which targeted pages across the web that rank primarily on domain authority rather than content quality. The affected pages on your site were ranking well but contained limited original product descriptions and minimal supporting content — making them vulnerable to this type of update.

This is not unusual. The same update affected a number of bathroom and home improvement retailers. It is fixable, and recovery timelines after content remediation typically run 4–8 weeks as Google re-crawls and reassesses the updated pages.

What we have done so far: Identified all affected pages within 72 hours of the drop. Rewrote and expanded content on two priority pages (bathroom suite and wetroom), which have been resubmitted to Search Console. Audited the remaining four pages and created a content brief for each.

What we will do next:Complete content remediation on all six pages by 15 April. Monitor ranking recovery weekly and flag any pages that don't begin recovering within 4 weeks for further investigation.

Meta performance was broadly stable. 61 conversions at a CPA of £48 — slightly above February's £44, largely attributable to the seasonal slowdown in home renovation consideration in mid-March. We're pausing two underperforming ad sets and reallocating to the retargeting audience, which continues to convert well at £31 CPA.

1. 1

   Complete content remediation on all 6 affected pages by 15 April. Monitor indexing weekly via Search Console and report progress at mid-month.

2. 2

   Run a full site audit against Google's updated quality guidelines to identify any other pages at risk before the next algorithm update cycle.

3. 3

   Tighten Google Ads keyword match types to protect CPA against continued competitive pressure in the 'bathroom suite' cluster. Target: CPA back to £34–35 by end of April.