Subject: SEO Report March 2026
Sent: 2026-04-07 · To: Burcu · Cc: Dr Cinik, Sera, Alexis, Olivier
Dashboard: https://dashboard.tomassous.com/dr-cinik/march-2026

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Hello everyone,

Here is our SEO report for March 2026.

March is down versus February, and this is driven by three things happening simultaneously:

1. **Demand is falling, especially in Italy.** Google Trends shows a 50% drop in search interest for "trapianto capelli turchia" compared to last year. This is the main driver of the Italian conversion collapse (-58.6%).
2. **Two Google updates hit at end of month.** A spam update on March 24-25 (no impact on us) followed by a core update starting March 27 that's still rolling out. Several positions are fluctuating a lot, especially in the UK market.
3. **Geopolitical context.** The conflict in Iran may be negatively impacting demand for medical tourism in Turkey, though it's too early to measure the exact effect.

Rankings have been going up and down since the core update started. We'll assess what needs to be done once the update finishes rolling out, but we don't know yet when that will be.

📊 **Leads**

**357 SEO leads · 13 LLM leads · 370 total**

|  | Mar 2026 | Feb 2026 | Change | Mar 2025 | YoY |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 🇬🇧 English | 260 | 278 | -6.5% | 340 | -23.5% |
| 🇫🇷 French | 55 | 57 | -3.5% | 89 | -38.2% |
| 🇮🇹 Italian | 29 | 70 | -58.6% | 84 | -65.5% |
| 🏴 London | 13 | 13 | = | 0 | New |
| **Total SEO** | **357** | **418** | **-14.6%** | **513** | **-30.4%** |

The Italian drop is the headline here. It's a combination of halved search demand and core update volatility. English held relatively well at -6.5%.

📍 **Positions**

🇬🇧 **English — 2 keywords at #1, 5 in top 3**

| Keyword | Mar | Feb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| dhi hair transplant in turkey | #1 | #1 |
| beard transplant turkey | #1 | #1 |
| hair transplant turkey | #2 | #2 |
| hair transplant for women turkey | #3 | #3 |
| fue hair transplant in turkey | #3 | #2 ↓ |
| hair transplant cost turkey | #6 | #5 ↓ |
| hair transplant package turkey | #10 | #8 ↓ |

These are average positions for March. The core update caused some ups and downs at the end of the month that aren't fully reflected here.

🇫🇷 **French — "greffe de cheveux turquie" dropped from #1 to #3**

| Keyword | Mar | Feb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| greffe de cheveux turquie (Hair transplant Turkey) | #3 | #1 ↓ |
| greffe de cheveux fue turquie (FUE hair transplant Turkey) | #2 | #1 ↓ |
| greffe de cheveux dhi turquie (DHI hair transplant Turkey) | #2 | #2 |
| greffe de barbe turquie (Beard transplant Turkey) | #7 | #5 ↓ |
| greffe de cheveux turquie prix (Hair transplant Turkey price) | #10 | #10 |
| greffe de cheveux (Hair transplant) | #40 | #67 ↑ |
| greffe de barbe (Beard transplant) | #35 | #41 ↑ |

We lost the #1 on our main French keyword after holding it for 3 months. This happened during the core update window. On the positive side, big jumps on broader keywords: "greffe de cheveux" gained 27 positions, "greffe de barbe" gained 6.

🇮🇹 **Italian — 4 keywords at #1, but main keyword dropped**

| Keyword | Mar | Feb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| trapianto barba turchia (Beard transplant Turkey) | #1 | #1 |
| trapianto capelli dhi turchia (DHI hair transplant Turkey) | #1 | #1 |
| trapianto di capelli dhi istanbul (DHI hair transplant Istanbul) | #1 | #1 ↑ |
| trapianto di barba istanbul (Beard transplant Istanbul) | #1 | #1 |
| trapianto capelli turchia (Hair transplant Turkey) | #5 | #3 ↓ |
| trapianto capelli dhi (DHI hair transplant) | #3 | #3 |
| trapianto capelli fue turchia (FUE hair transplant Turkey) | #7 | #5 ↓ |
| trapianto capelli donne turchia (Women's hair transplant Turkey) | #5 | #8 ↑ |
| fue zaffiro (Sapphire FUE) | #4 | #8 ↑ |

Mixed: the main keyword lost 2 positions, but women's transplant (+3) and sapphire FUE (+4) improved significantly. The demand drop is the bigger issue here, not the rankings.

🇺🇸 **United States — Excellent progress, all 8 keywords in top 10**

| Keyword | Mar | Feb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| hair transplant istanbul | #2 | #3 ↑ |
| dhi hair transplant turkey | #2 | #2 |
| best hair transplant clinic in turkey | #3 | #10 ↑ |
| beard transplant turkey | #4 | #2 ↓ |
| turkey hair transplant cost | #4 | #28 ↑ |
| best hair transplant in turkey | #4 | #8 ↑ |
| fue hair transplant turkey | #5 | #13 ↑ |
| hair transplant turkey | #9 | #13 ↑ |

The US is the standout this month. "Turkey hair transplant cost" jumped 24 positions. "Best hair transplant clinic in turkey" gained 7. 6 out of 8 keywords improved. This validates the ROI report recommendation to invest more in this market.

🇹🇷 **Turkish — Steady growth**

| Keyword | Mar | Feb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| istanbul saç ekimi (Istanbul hair transplant) | #10 | #14 ↑ |
| fue saç ekimi (FUE hair transplant) | #11 | #11 |
| dhi saç ekimi (DHI hair transplant) | #20 | #33 ↑ |

🌐 **Traffic**

37,519 clicks total (-6.3% vs February). The decline is consistent across most markets, with two exceptions: French grew +4.6% and Croatian rebounded +178.6%.

|  | Mar 2026 | Feb 2026 | Change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 🇬🇧 English | 37,804 | 40,396 | -6.4% |
| 🇫🇷 French | 8,339 | 7,972 | +4.6% |
| 🇮🇹 Italian | 7,740 | 7,858 | -1.5% |
| 🇺🇸 US | 2,221 | 2,393 | -7.2% |
| 🇹🇷 Turkish | 1,871 | 1,760 | +6.3% |
| 🇷🇸 Serbian | 285 | 448 | -36.4% |
| 🏴 London | 258 | 293 | -11.9% |
| 🇭🇷 Croatian | 156 | 56 | +178.6% |

One positive signal: average position improved from 8.6 to 8.0. We're ranking better overall, but getting fewer clicks because there's less search demand.

🤖 **LLM Traffic**

13 leads at 3.55% conversion rate, still well above our SEO average (0.87%). Claude traffic tripled (+200%) and Gemini grew +50%, the channel continues to diversify beyond ChatGPT.

| Source | Sessions | Leads | Conv. Rate |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ChatGPT | 244 | 13 | 5.33% |
| Perplexity | 68 | 0 | - |
| Gemini | 30 | 0 | - |
| Claude | 18 | 0 | - |
| Copilot | 6 | 0 | - |
| **Total** | **366** | **13** | **3.55%** |

✍️ **Content, PR & Links**

- Blog articles for March have been published across all markets
- Link building continued as scheduled, a few placements from March still pending publication
- 5 links still pending Ahrefs detection: iHeart (DR91), Cincinnati.com (DR81), ADNKronos (DR80), Affari Italiani (DR75), Live Sicilia (DR62)

🏆 **Competitor Link Building**

Competitors haven't slowed down. Here's what was published in March:

| Clinic | Links | Top placements | Key move |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Dr. Cinik** | 57 (+5 pending) | iHeart DR91, AccessNewswire DR80, Affari Italiani DR75 | Chicago Bulls syndication residuals + Italian medialinks in progress |
| **Smile Hair** | 632 | Le Point FR (DR86), Grazia FR (DR75), National Post CA (DR85) | Massive volume, 4,673 spam links filtered. Strong French push |
| **Vera Clinic** | 79 | LA Times (DR92), IBTimes (DR85), TechBullion (DR80) | Houston Rockets partnership — copying our NBA strategy |
| **Cosmedica** | 53 | Le Progrès FR (DR82), RP.pl PL (DR83), Kent Online UK (DR76) | Strong multi-market month: Poland, France, UK, Italy |
| **Dr. Serkan Aygin** | 50 | Rolling Stone MENA (DR90), Outlook India (DR87), NY Weekly (DR78) | Best single link of the month (Rolling Stone) |
| **Clinicana** | 20 | Travelmag (DR72) | No real investment |

**Key signal: Vera Clinic copied our NBA strategy.** They signed a partnership with the Houston Rockets, syndicated on LA Times (DR92), IBTimes (DR85) and Digital Journal (DR86). This is a direct copy of our Chicago Bulls partnership from February. Worth monitoring over the next months.

Other observations:
- Cosmedica is actively developing the Polish market (RP.pl DR83, Radio Gdansk DR71, epoznan.pl DR65) where we have no presence
- Serkan Aygin landed the best single link of the entire benchmark: Rolling Stone MENA (DR90)
- Smile Hair continues using a massive fake-media network (100+ coordinated domains at DR25-40) alongside legitimate premium placements
- Several competitors share the same Turkish directory network

📰 **SEO News**

- **March 2026 Spam Update (March 24-25).** The fastest spam update in Google's history, completed in under 20 hours. It targeted manipulative practices like cloaking, doorway pages, and mass-generated low-quality content. It explicitly did not target link building or backlink profiles. Our site was unaffected.
- **March 2026 Core Update (Started March 27).** The first broad core update of 2026, expected to take up to 2 weeks. This update re-evaluates content quality across the entire web. Early data shows it favors original content, expert authorship, and deep topical authority. This works in our favor: Dr. Cinik has a Wikipedia page, citations from Reuters, MSN, The Mirror, and established medical credentials. The full impact will show in April's data.
- **Continued volatility since December 2025.** Google has been unusually unstable for 3 months straight. SEMrush Sensor hit 9.5/10 in March. This is industry-wide, not specific to us, but it explains the position fluctuations we're seeing across all markets.
- **Italian market demand drop.** Google Trends confirms a 50% drop in search volume for "trapianto capelli turchia" versus last year. Combined with the core update volatility, this explains the sharp conversion decline in Italy this month.

Best regards,

Tom