Kit Kat. You may have heard about the theft, and the memes running through the internet, but what happens to search traffic when that happens? Did Nestle gain? Google is quick to react and when the SERP lights up with Top Stories boxes, CTR to the brand drops and the real winners are the established news websites that cover the story – at least in the short term.
Here’s the current SERP as seen by SISTRIX in the UK yesterday, 31st March 2026
Compare that to the simple brand-focused SERP just a few days before:
The effect on the organic visibility, a function of CTR and average search volume is seen in today’s Visibility Index as the CTR changes.
The news opportunity
When stories like this break, Top Stories boxes appear and news and PR teams get talking.
The last 48 hours have been no exception as many have tried to ride the news. With speed and recency, Google is where it happens and the organic results hold the important Top Stories box and becomes the main conduit for news traffic.
For established new sites, being in the Top Stories box is critical for incoming traffic and you will have seen the main outlets writing multiple stories as the news evolves. The Independent released six articles relating to this news!
Being positioned with a topic landing page and an established history of information is a must. Instagram, Reddit and, obviously, Wikipedia do this well with constantly updating topic pages. Established websites generally don’t have huge libraries of topic landing pages.
Of four news websites checked today, only thesun.co.uk has a consistent presence for “kitkat” and currently ranks for 47 search terms that include the word. The visibility mainly stems from business-section news, but not a topic landing page.
Tools like SISTRIX can help news organisations evaluate their presence in organic search by offering historical rankings and a list of important URLs which may highlight opportunities for topic overview pages.
SISTRIX uses average search volume to calculate the Visibility Index
You will see the increased Google search volume from this news in the monthly data in the coming weeks as we receive our data sources (multiple, cross-checked). A similar example was seen in March 2025 but this will not directly affect the daily or weekly Visibility Index.
The Visibility Index does not use these short-term trends because we want to give you values that you can use for long-term and out-of-season planning. We use the average monthly search volume over the last 12 months and update the VI, daily, based on that.
Doing this gives you a much better way to plan and measure your visibility success, without having to consider season, events or trending news. You can measure your christmas tree visibility whenever you want. (balsamhill.co.uk, you’re doing OK!)
