IndexWatch Q3 2025: UK Winners & Losers

From:

Luce Rawlings

Published: 05.11.2025

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Introduction

We’ve analysed the 250 domains that saw the biggest gains and losses in SISTRIX Visibility Index on UK Google between 1st July and 30th September 2025.

Domains analysed below: PicClick, Wickes, Letterboxd, WH Smith (TG Jones), GB News and Monster. Lists of 200 domain winners and losers are also shown below.

Winners

PicClick

Picclick.co.uk is a straightforward search engine designed to help users browse eBay listings more efficiently. The domain saw a 281.19% increase in visibility over the quarter.

Since the beginning of July, the product pages located at the root level, along with those in the “popular” subfolder, have experienced the largest uplifts.

As its name suggests, the “popular” subfolder contains the most frequently visited product categories, ranging from “cars-motorcycles-vehicles” to more niche item types such as “used-ferret-finders” and “bargain-hunt-gavels”.

“Popular” Page Example:

Given PicClick’s reliance on eBay’s product data, we wanted to explore whether PicClick’s clean user interface has provided it with an SEO advantage over the marketplace giant, potentially allowing it to capture some of eBay’s search visibility.

Focusing on a shared high-performing keyword group, adidas, and comparing data from early July to late September, both sites have experienced growth in visibility for queries containing the term “Adidas.” However, eBay’s growth has been modest. While eBay recorded only an 8.6% increase in visibility, PicClick ranked for 2,576 more keywords in July and saw a 26.4% visibility increase over the same period (4,777 to 6,088 keywords). 

This, combined with the fact that picclick.co.uk targets a higher proportion of “Do” intent queries compared to eBay’s “Know”-dominant profile, suggests that PicClick’s website design, product categorisation and keyword optimisation deliver a more relevant and intent-aligned experience for users.

Wickes

Home improvement retailer Wickes’ online store has experienced a 185.85% increase in visibility on UK Google (+83.07 VI points) over the past 3 months.

The domain’s visibility initially rose following the June Core Update, continued to grow during the August Spam Update, and stabilised by the end of September.

A closer look at the directories on wickes.co.uk confirms that the section that saw the biggest influx was “Products” (+176.7%), with “Garden+Outdoor+Landscaping”, “Building-Materials” and “Doors+Windows” categories seeing the most significant upticks.

In September, it was reported that Wickes has seen strong profit growth in 2025, noting digital growth and productivity-based investments as a core needle-mover. So, what exactly have they addressed on the website to grow their search engine presence?

A manual review of the website compared to the start of the year highlights several key updates. From the additional product subcategories to target more long-tail search queries (many of which are featured in the mega menu), along with design and content enhancements to PDPs to improve page quality, relevance and brand trust and credibility.

March 2025:

October 2025:

Like most ecommerce sites, keyword cannibalisation continues to affect wickes.co.uk. However, following these updates and the recent algorithm changes, the ranking URLs for 2,222 keywords have switched to different PDPs – and, in doing so, their positions have improved by between 1 and 98 places.

Letterboxd

Letterboxd.com is a social network for film enthusiasts where users can track the movies they’ve watched, write reviews and create watchlists of films they’d like to see.

Like Wickes, Letterboxd has seen an improvement in its organic visibility following the June Core and August Spam Updates. Specific subfolders that have seen the most growth over the quarter are “Film” and “Actor”.

“Film” Page Example

The “Film” pages include details about each movie’s cast, crew, genre and release date, along with related user reviews and news updates.

“Actor” Page Example

Each “Actor” page includes a headshot, biography and a visual grid of the films they’ve appeared in, complete with filter and sort options.

The “Film” and “Actor” pages added 89,436 new keywords this quarter, with 122,459 existing keywords improving in position. During this period, the number of SERP snippets that Letterboxd ranked for, overall, also increased by 44.91% (from 14,494 to 21,004).

The visibility improvements appear to be driven by content depth and quality on the “Film” and “Actor” pages. Detailed information, clearly defined subfolders, page filtering, sorting and user-generated reviews have contributed to improving trust and credibility signals, enhancing SERP presence and, consequently, keyword positions.

All Q3 2025 winners

Below are the winners by absolute change:

And percent change:

Losers

WH Smith

In Q3, whsmith.co.uk saw a 97.11% (7.32 VI point) decrease in Google SERP visibility. WH Smith was one of the oldest British retail brands, which sold stationery, books, newspapers, magazines and travel essentials.

In March 2025, the 233-year-old brand was acquired by Modella Capital, the owner of the country’s largest arts and crafts retailer, Hobbycraft. As part of the acquisition, it was decided that WH Smith would be rebranded as TGJones.

Following the rebrand, the contents of whsmith.co.uk were migrated to tgjonesonline.co.uk in mid-July. The drop in visibility for WH Smith reflects this domain migration, while the new TGJones brand has experienced a 342.95% increase in visibility.

GB News

Gbnews.com has experienced an 85.63% decrease in organic visibility since July. The website provides a mix of live broadcasts, on-demand videos and written articles across multiple news categories. The timing of this decline suggests it coincided with the June 2025 Core Update.

A closer inspection of the site subfolders confirms that the homepage – “/” – has seen the most significant decline in appearances on the SERPs over the past 3 months.

In November 2023, GB News introduced a new revenue stream through tiered memberships, offering paid subscribers access to exclusive content not available to the general public.

In early 2025, in response to new privacy regulations from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and to encourage more membership sign-ups, GB News introduced a prominent homepage pop-up. This allows readers to comply with the regulations while promoting paid subscriptions for an ad-free experience, turning what is a legal requirement into a money-making opportunity.

Based on the timeline of the ICO regulations and the June update’s focus on clamping down on poor and cluttered user experiences, it is possible that this impacted the homepage’s visibility across the search results pages.

Monster

Since the end of June, monster.co.uk, an online platform connecting jobseekers with recruiters, has experienced an 81.89% decline in SEO visibility. A closer look at the directory data shows that the domain root, along with the “Jobs” and “Company” subfolders, have all seen notable drops in performance.

The reason? In July 2025, Monster was acquired by Bold Holdings, and the website was redesigned as a single-page site, rebranded and promoted under the MyPerfectCV name. As the name suggests, MyPerfectCV is an online tool that helps users create new CVs or enhance existing ones.

As part of the transition, a blanket 301 redirect was applied from all internal pages to the homepage. Based on the new site structure, it’s reasonable to assume the homepage will eventually be 301 redirected to myperfectcv.co.uk.

This approach is a textbook example of how years of accumulated link equity can be lost when legacy pages are redirected to a single page with little contextual relevance.

All Q3 2025 losers

Below are the losers by absolute change:

And percent change:

Conclusion

So, what are the main takeaways from this Q3’s winners and losers analysis?

• Prioritising intent and experience yields an organic search advantage. PicClick’s success demonstrates that a clean user interface, superior product categorisation and commercial, “Do” intent queries combined give smaller sites the ability to compete with renowned brands, like eBay, in visibility, even when relying on the same core dataset!

• Content quality and trust signals remain pivotal. Domains like Wickes and Letterboxd achieved gains by enhancing E-E-A-T signals, which were seemingly rewarded during the June Core and August Spam Updates.

• Long-tail searches remain highly relevant. As Google evolves from its traditional format toward a more AI-driven approach, targeting these keywords will become increasingly important – particularly for bottom-of-the-funnel content. Wickes has successfully captured additional users by introducing more product subcategories.

• Migration risks can be higher during a rebrand, but when carefully planned and executed, the results can surpass expectations. In the case of the WH Smith to TGJones migration, Modella Capital managed to successfully transfer page equity from whsmith.co.uk and, through a strong Information Architecture, set up the TGJones domain up for organic search success from day dot.

• Pop-ups, while often necessary, can negatively impact user experience if poorly implemented. For example, GB News’ homepage has seen a significant decline in visibility on Google UK.

• Applying a site-wide 301 redirect from multiple pages to a single page signals irrelevance to search engines. If the Monster domain is ever relaunched as a job board, its historical link equity is unlikely to be recognised or passed through.