July 24, 2025

June 2025 Google Core Update Analysis

By Jovana Parata | Published July 24, 2025

Key takeaways:

The June update was the second core algorithm update in 2025, the first one being the update in March.
It lasted from June 30 to July 17, 2025.
There was an overall increase in organic traffic both for travel bloggers and commercial websites.
AI citations matter: Winning blogs appeared more frequently in AI-generated answers
HCU-hit sites are showing signs of recovery, which is encouraging, though it’s too soon for total recovery.
Main trends for travel blogs: usefulness over monetization, unique perspectives over generic guides, credible authorship with real-world recognition, featuring trust signals such as mentions, awards and other credentials.
Traffic up 3% across top 200 commercial travel websites, showing a stronger impact than March.
Main conclusions for commercial websites: winners came from diverse niches, AI-first platforms gained visibility, airlines with predictive travel featured performed well, and boutique hotels outperformed larger competitors.

Key takeaways:

The June update was the second core algorithm update in 2025, the first one being the update in March.
It lasted from June 30 to July 17, 2025.
There was an overall increase in organic traffic both for travel bloggers and commercial websites.
AI citations matter: Winning blogs appeared more frequently in AI-generated answers
HCU-hit sites are showing signs of recovery, which is encouraging, though it’s too soon for total recovery.
Main trends for travel blogs: usefulness over monetization, unique perspectives over generic guides, credible authorship with real-world recognition, featuring trust signals such as mentions, awards and other credentials.
Traffic up 3% across top 200 commercial travel websites, showing a stronger impact than March.
Main conclusions for commercial websites: winners came from diverse niches, AI-first platforms gained visibility, airlines with predictive travel featured performed well, and boutique hotels outperformed larger competitors.

Google just finished rolling out another update — how has it impacted your website this time? We previously covered November, December and March updates, and this time around we are back to analyze the effects of the June Google core update and give you some advice on how to recover and stay prepared for what’s to come.

The June Core Algorithm Update was the second one this year, and just like other updates of this kind, it was designed to better meet users’ expectations by improving the quality of search results. It started on June 30 and ended on July 17, 2025.

This update seemed to spark a lot of interest from the very start. SEO specialists, marketers, and bloggers alike posted enthusiastic updates on X even before the update finished rolling out.

Did this update really bring a lot of positive change? We will share all the data, conclusions and impressions below.

How did we gather our data?

As with our previous analyses, we used Ahrefs to provide us with the organic traffic data for the websites both before the update and after. Ahrefs is a leading SEO tool that provides insights into a website’s performance, and by comparing the data it provided and performing on-page and technical analysis afterward, we were able to draw conclusions to help you make relevant changes and stay aligned with the current best practices.

June 2025 Core Update impact on travel bloggers

Overall increase in traffic for bloggers

After this update, we noticed a 7% growth for travel bloggers, which is great news, especially when compared to the previous updates after which we didn’t see such high growth overall.

The travel blogs that benefited the most are small websites. In fact, 80% of the top 20 winning websites are blogs generating under 1,000 organic visitors, which is encouraging for small website owners and shows that you don’t need to be big to win. If that’s the case for you, it would be great to take advantage of the momentum and make more valuable changes to make Google trust you even more.

The majority of blogs analyzed gained traffic

What’s even more encouraging than seeing overall growth is that 70% of blogs analyzed gained organic traffic, with some websites experiencing more than 200% growth even in the medium-sized website range. It does seem like Google is trying to compensate for the previous updates and drops caused by them, although this could also mean that travel bloggers are working hard to adapt to current trends, which is something we will share about how to do in more depth below.

Winning websites appeared in AI-generated answers more frequently

With a lot of talk about AI, we also thought we would dive deeper into how many times winning websites were linked to in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. We used Ahrefs’ new AI Citations feature, which counts how often domains were linked in AI results, not mentioned in passing. It turns out that winning websites appeared in AI-generated answers much more than losing websites. For the purpose of making this comparison more relevant, we compared similar websites (mostly small and medium-sized), and excluded big websites altogether.

Many HCU ‘’recoveries’’

We noticed a significant upward trend in the organic traffic of websites that were hit by the 2023 Helpful Content Update, which is the first time this has happened for many affected websites. Here is an example of a website that has experienced quite an increase when compared to the traffic before the update.

However, when looking at it from a larger perspective, we do see that this upward trend is still far from being called a recovery.

Still, it’s quite encouraging for these website owners to see a step in the right direction after all this time.

Google still prefers genuinely useful content that helps, not just sells

We compared the top losing websites and discovered that the blogs that focused the most on generating profit were among the most punished ones after this update. Their articles on different locations, i.e., Italy, included mostly articles with opportunities for affiliate links, such as “What to Wear in Rome,” “What to Pack for Venice,” etc. While this is definitely fine in moderation, in these cases, it was clear that the main goal behind the content strategy was to generate revenue.

Experience-first content and storytelling outperform generic guides

In the top winning blogs, we noticed a recurring pattern where the majority of bloggers included their unique stories that are genuinely interesting to read because they provide their unique perspectives. This was the case both for their About pages, as well as for the content throughout the website. We also saw that bloggers prioritizing travel deals, cheap flights, tips for planning did rather well after this update. This once again highlights Google’s preference for usefulness, but also authenticity.

Authorship credibility and trust signals are still important for Google

While it is generally recommended to have author pages and bios, this doesn’t seem to be enough for Google anymore. We noticed a clear preference for a higher degree of authority where the authors are somewhat known travel journalists and book authors.

What was also important for Google this time around were other trust signals, which is definitely not new, but we had the impression that these signals were even more prominent. The winning bloggers didn’t shy away from showing off the logos of websites they were featured in, which in some cases, we saw both on the homepage and on the About page. They also made sure to mention any other travel-related successes, such as their Executive Platinum status with American Airlines

Advice for travel bloggers

Don’t be scared of AI taking over your traffic. It’s possible to optimize both for AI citations and SEO, and be successful in both.
Do your best to be the source, instead of just summarizing what others have to say. Original insights tend to perform better, as long as you also match user intent.
Don’t get carried away with wanting to generate revenue — always try to have a balance between genuinely useful content and monetization.
Show off your awards, titles, and milestones. Google (and users) will appreciate the added credibility.
Build a real author presence that goes beyond having recognition on your website.
If your blog has gained traffic after this algorithm update, use the momentum and analyze which pages Google has given more traffic to so you can scale the efforts.
Have you lost traffic? Try to look at it as a lesson. Look for patterns in the pages that lost traffic — try to decide if they lack originality, or maybe no longer match what is needed to rank for their keywords.

June 2025 Core Update Impact on Commercial Travel Websites

Just as in the March algorithm update article, we analyzed the performance of the top 200 commercial websites, including hotels, hotel-booking platforms, and major airlines, all based on the top keywords for their specific niches.

While commercial websites already experienced growth back in March, this time around, there was an even bigger increase in traffic of 3%.

While the previous update could have easily been confused with just a regular fluctuation in traffic, the June update seemed more impactful.

We do not see any specific preferences in terms of how Google has treated different sizes of websites, as we can see quite a range in terms of traffic.

Conclusions, analytics, and trends for commercial websites

The winners come from a variety of niches

We see quite a mix of websites in the list of top performers. Though different niches are included, we do see both hotels and hotel-booking platforms in the list of top winners. This is a good sign, as it suggests that there’s space for everyone as long as user expectations are met effectively. It’s also quite relieving as it shows that there’s no need to be everything to everyone; what really matters is being good at one thing that matters most to your audience.

AI-first platforms are gaining traffic

In the list of winners above, we see Hopper, a travel-booking app that uses AI to predict the best time to book hotels and flights. Although a few other websites experienced more growth, we believe it’s a good sign to see AI-driven platforms in this list because it’s yet another confirmation that Google genuinely cares about promoting useful content, regardless of whether it is AI or not.

Winning airlines have a great user experience with ‘’predictive travel’’ features

We’ve noticed a trend in winning airlines that focuses on providing features that help users make a decision and go beyond just regular search boxes and widgets. One of these features is a ‘’low fare calendar’’ which allows users to find the cheapest flights worldwide by going through the list of destinations offered by that airline, with a search bar that allows searching for the destination in mind specifically. It also shows popular destinations by indicating how many people are currently looking for them, further enhancing the user experience. This is a clear sign that matching what competitors are doing is important, but being innovative is what really makes the difference.

Boutique-focused hotels saw higher growth than other hotels and hotel-booking platforms

This particular trend is a good example of a possible wider shift toward more experience-driven travel experiences, as opposed to generic and mass-market stays. Boutique hotels are small-capacity hotels that usually offer a more personalized service. This can also indirectly be compared to how generic content is widely being outperformed by content that’s rooted in real, unique experiences. In both cases, people seem to be looking for more connection and value.

Although the overall decrease may be similar to just a normal fluctuation in traffic, there still are commercial travel websites with an increase of up to 73%, while the decrease doesn’t drop below -19%.

Additionally, a little over 50% of commercial travel websites analyzed actually experienced either no negative impact or even saw gains, which is great news and a reminder that growth is possible even with the frequent algorithm changes we’ve been getting in recent years.

What bloggers have to say about the latest updates

While I have felt the impacts of previous Google updates, my blog is doing very well with this recent update with traffic increases of 100-125% compared to last month. I've been a travel blogger since 2013, and my focus has always been to write detailed and helpful travel guides for my audience. I specialize in a few niches and destinations, which I feel is helpful overall. I also made the recent decision to redesign my website, so it's more user-friendly and has a more polished look. I've also expanded my focus beyond social media to regularly creating content on YouTube. By providing content in multiple formats across the web and social media, it has helped me to reach many audiences as an expert traveller.

Lauren Yakiwchuk

Justin Plus Lauren
What I’ve learned from the July 2025 update, and from everything that’s shaken the blogging community over the past few years, is simple: consistency and patience work — in blogging, in any business, in life at large. Even when my blog felt dormant after HCU, I continued writing, updating, and creating content for real travelers, not Google, because I genuinely love it. The traffic isn’t back to pre-2022 levels, but posts that disappeared are slowly resurfacing. Of course, I’ve kept up with how the landscape is shifting (with more emphasis on human-written, experience-led content to stand out from AI-driven fluff, and platforms like Pinterest helping more than Google at times for driving traffic, though email building remains a challenge in the travel niche, simply because readers don’t always need repeat content the way other niches do). Still, my core approach hasn’t changed: create content that genuinely helps people and reflects real experiences. At the heart of it all, what really seems to matter is staying true to your own experience, expertise, and trustworthiness because those are what help you stand out and remain relevant. It’s clear Google is again valuing creators who stayed true to their readers and kept showing up. My tip is to write for people, not algorithms. Keep going. Like the Bhagavad Gita says: focus on your work, not the outcome. Consistency and perseverance will always take you where you need to b

Anjali Chawla

Travel Melodies

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Jovana Parata

Senior SEO Specialist

As an experienced SEO specialist, Jovana is passionate about driving organic growth through data-driven strategies and a holistic approach to SEO. With a love for traveling by car and exploring new places, she has been to 21 countries and 12 states. Jovana’s favorite place to explore is the Balkans, the region where she is originally from. You can find her on LinkedIn.

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