--- title: "Audit your traffic drop after a Google algorithm update." description: "Compare affected pages and update dates, rank the work, and assign checks to SEO leads, developers, and writers. 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Organic traffic falls 30 percent in one week. Google announced a core update four days earlier. The developer starts to rewrite page templates, the writers stop all publication, and the SEO lead audits every page at once. Nobody knows which change fixed what. Google releases several core updates each year, plus many smaller ranking changes. Each update moves rankings between sites. A recovery plan works when each role owns one part of the diagnosis and one part of the fix. This article gives the SEO lead, the developers, and the content team a separate response plan and a shared 12-week schedule. ## Identify the type of update Your response depends on what Google changed. Google publishes confirmed ranking updates on the Google Search Status Dashboard and the Google Search Central blog. Match the update type to your symptoms before you change anything. | Update type | Frequency | Typical symptom | Typical recovery time | |---|---|---|---| | Core update | Several times each year | Rankings move across many pages; competitors move at the same time | 4 to 12 weeks; some gains appear only at the next core update | | Spam update or link update | Two to four times each year | Severe drops, for example from position 3 to position 30 or lower | 1 to 6 months | | Reviews system change | Ongoing | Review and affiliate pages fall; pages with original testing rise | 4 to 12 weeks | | Page experience change | Gradual, not a discrete event | Slow pages or pages with layout shift lose position | 1 to 4 weeks after technical fixes | Core updates focus on content quality, user satisfaction, and E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness). Spam updates target manipulative link schemes, auto-generated content, and cloaking. A manual action for spam appears in Google Search Console under `Security & Manual Actions`. Recovery from a manual action needs a cleanup and a reconsideration request. Two update names in older guides are out of date. In March 2024, Google made the helpful content system part of its core ranking systems. It no longer runs as a separate update. In November 2023, Google said it would improve its reviews system on a regular basis and stop separate announcements. Treat a drop on thin or keyword-stuffed pages as a core update issue. Treat a drop on review pages as a reviews issue. ## SEO lead: diagnose, rank, and coordinate The SEO lead owns the diagnosis and the recovery backlog. The lead also assigns work to the other roles. ### Step 1: Confirm the update (days 1 and 2) 1. Check the Google Search Status Dashboard and the `@googlesearchc` account on X for update dates. 2. Check volatility trackers such as Semrush Sensor and MozCast for spikes on the same dates. 3. In Google Analytics 4, filter to organic traffic and compare the drop date with the update rollout. 4. In Ahrefs or Semrush, compare your domain visibility with your competitors before and after the update. If traffic fell two weeks before the update, the cause is probably a site issue, not the update. Check the site first in that case. ### Step 2: Find the affected pages (days 2 and 3) In Google Search Console, open `Performance`, then the `Pages` tab. Compare the 28 days before the update with the 28 days after it. Sort by clicks and list every page that lost 30 percent or more. In Google Analytics 4, compare landing-page sessions, engagement rate, and conversions for the same periods. A page that lost traffic but kept its engagement rate probably has acceptable content. The cause for that page is more likely external. Sort the losses into three groups: - Group A: major traffic pages that lost 50 percent or more. These are priority 1. - Group B: mid-tier pages that lost 30 to 50 percent. These are priority 2. - Group C: minor pages that lost less than 30 percent. These are priority 3. ### Step 3: Diagnose root causes (days 3 to 5) For each affected page, check four areas. Content quality problems include thin coverage, keyword stuffing, repackaged competitor content, and facts that are more than two years old. E-E-A-T gaps include no author byline, no sources, no first-hand experience, and no About page. Technical problems include failed Core Web Vitals, mobile display defects, and crawl errors. User experience problems include low engagement, intrusive ads or pop-ups, and orphan pages with no internal links. Write one hypothesis for each page. For example: "This page probably lost rank because its pricing facts are from 2023." ### Step 4: Rank the recovery work (days 5 to 7) Divide the traffic lost by the effort required. Fix the pages with the highest score first. | Page | Monthly sessions lost | Recovery effort | Priority | |---|---|---|---| | Best CRM for real estate | 1,200 | Medium: rewrite 40 percent, add original data | High | | CRM pricing guide | 800 | Low: update prices, add a comparison table | High | | What is a CRM | 200 | High: complete rewrite | Low | The result is a ranked backlog with an effort estimate for each page. ### Step 5: Assign the work (days 7 to 30) Give the developers the Core Web Vitals fixes, the mobile display defects, and missing structured data. Give the content team the thin pages, the out-of-date facts, the original research, and the E-E-A-T gaps. Keep the backlink audit, the internal links to affected pages, and the weekly progress check with the SEO lead. Complete the recovery work within 30 days for fast changes. Allow 60 to 90 days for core update work. ## Developers: fix what the update exposed The developer job is to remove technical causes of the ranking loss. Work in this order. ### Priority 1: Core Web Vitals (days 1 to 3) Run PageSpeed Insights on each affected page. Then open the `Core Web Vitals` report in Google Search Console to find all failing URLs. Use Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools to test fixes locally. The [developer guide to Core Web Vitals](/articles/core-web-vitals-developer-guide) covers each metric in more detail. - Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) must be 2.5 seconds or less. To fix it, compress images, serve WebP, reduce server response time, add caching, and remove render-blocking CSS and JavaScript. - Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) must be 0.1 or less. To fix it, set `width` and `height` on images and ad slots. Do not insert content above existing content. Use `font-display: swap`. - Interaction to Next Paint (INP) must be 200 milliseconds or less. To fix it, reduce JavaScript execution time, debounce event handlers, and move heavy computation to web workers. INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. If an older checklist tells you to measure First Input Delay, measure INP instead. ### Priority 2: Mobile display (days 3 to 5) Google Search Console retired its Mobile Usability report and the Mobile-Friendly Test in December 2023. Use Lighthouse and real devices instead: an iPhone, an Android phone, and a tablet. Check four common defects: - Text is too small. Set body text to 16 pixels or more. - Tap targets are too close. Give each target about 48 pixels of space. - Content is wider than the screen. Remove fixed-width elements and use responsive CSS. - The viewport is not set. Add ``. ### Priority 3: Crawl and index health (days 5 to 7) Open the `Page indexing` report in Google Search Console. This report replaced the older Coverage report. Fix each error type: - 404 errors: redirect to a relevant page, or restore the content. - Soft 404 errors: the page shows an error but returns a 200 status. Fix the page or return a real 404. - Server errors (5xx): fix the server configuration or the host. - Redirect chains: change A to B to C into A to C. Then check `robots.txt` and the meta robots tags. Make sure no important page is blocked. Remove `noindex` from every page that must rank. ### Priority 4: Structured data (days 7 to 10) Open the enhancement reports in Google Search Console. Fix missing required fields, invalid URLs, and schema types that do not match the page. Add Article, Product, and BreadcrumbList markup where it applies. Test each page with the Google Rich Results Test. Since August 2023, Google shows FAQ rich results only for well-known government and health sites. FAQ markup on other sites no longer produces a rich result. ## Content team: improve the pages that lost The content job is to make each affected page more complete, more current, and more credible. ### Priority 1: Depth audit (days 1 to 5) Compare each affected page with the top five results for its main query. Google states that it has no preferred word count, so treat length as a rough signal only. As a screen, flag informational pages under 1,000 words and commercial pages under 1,500 words. Expand flagged pages with original examples, data, and sections that competitors do not cover. A content gap report in Ahrefs or Semrush shows those sections. Add charts, screenshots, or diagrams where they explain the point. ### Priority 2: Freshness (days 5 to 10) Review every affected page that is more than 18 months old. Replace old statistics, add sections for recent changes, and update screenshots. Show a visible `Last updated` date. Change the date only when the content changed in a material way. The [content refresh guide](/articles/content-refresh-strategy) gives a full refresh process. ### Priority 3: E-E-A-T (days 10 to 15) Add an author byline with a full name, credentials, a short biography, and a link to an author page. Cite studies and primary sources for each claim. Add evidence of first-hand use: original photos, test results, and specific outcomes. The [E-E-A-T guide for content writers](/articles/eeat-content-writers) shows more examples. Compare these two sentences: - Before: "The best CRM for real estate is one that integrates with your website and offers automation features." - After: "We tested 12 CRMs over six months with a 15-agent team. The winner connected to our IDX website and routed each new lead in under 30 seconds. The screenshot below shows the automation we built." The second version names a test, a team size, a product, a measurement, and evidence. ### Priority 4: Pruning (days 15 to 20) Remove or combine low-value pages. Flag pages with fewer than 100 organic sessions each month for 12 months or more. Flag pages under 500 words with no unique value. Flag pages that target the same keyword as another page. The [keyword cannibalization guide](/articles/keyword-cannibalization-detection) shows how to find that overlap. For each flagged page, choose one action. Redirect a thin page to a more complete page. Combine several weak pages into one strong page. Delete a page that has no search demand and no user value. ## Coordinate the 12-week recovery Use one shared schedule so that each role knows what the others are doing. | Week | SEO lead | Developers | Content team | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Diagnose impact, publish the ranked backlog | Audit Core Web Vitals and mobile display | Start the depth audit on group A pages | | 2 | Check rankings each day for early signals | Deploy Core Web Vitals fixes | Expand thin pages, update old facts | | 3 | Audit internal links and the backlink profile | Complete mobile display fixes | Add bylines, sources, and original data | | 4 | Publish a recovery report for stakeholders | Add structured data | Complete redirects, merges, and deletions | | 5 to 12 | Check rankings each week in Search Console and Ahrefs or Semrush | Fix regressions | Continue with group B and group C pages | Technical fixes usually show an effect in one to two weeks. Content changes usually take four to eight weeks. Full recovery takes eight to 12 weeks for most updates. Some sites recover only at the next core update, which can be three to six months later. ## Avoid five recovery mistakes Do not make mass changes. If you change everything, you cannot learn what worked. Change only the affected pages. Do not stop publication. An update affects existing pages. New pages often rank normally while you repair the old ones. Do not over-optimize. Extra keywords in every sentence and stuffed meta tags look like manipulation. Do not expect instant recovery. An update can take weeks to roll out, and rankings move during the rollout. Do not assume one fix is enough. An update evaluates many signals. You may need content, technical, and E-E-A-T fixes together. An algorithm drop has no appeal process. A reconsideration request applies only to a manual action. For an algorithm drop, fix the cause and wait for Google to evaluate the pages again. Google re-crawls pages continuously, so fast fixes can show gains before the next core update. ## Work through an example recovery This example is a composite that shows the method. It is not a client result. A B2B software site targets "project management software" queries. Organic traffic falls 35 percent after a core update. The SEO lead finds three causes. The 10 group A articles are thin, have no original data, and show old screenshots. Core Web Vitals fail on 60 percent of pages. No article has an author biography. In weeks 1 and 2, the developers optimize images. LCP falls from 4.1 seconds to 2.2 seconds. They fix layout shift, and CLS falls from 0.18 to 0.05. They also enlarge small tap targets. In weeks 2 to 4, the writers expand the 10 articles from about 1,200 words to about 2,800 words. They add results from a user survey, current screenshots, and author biographies. In weeks 3 and 4, the SEO lead links related articles to each other and disavows 80 directory links. At week 8, organic traffic is at 95 percent of the level before the update. Eight of the 10 group A articles move from positions 12 to 20 back to positions 3 to 8. The conversion rate is 15 percent higher. Neither the technical fixes nor the content fixes alone explain the recovery. The team made both. ## Audit each quarter Run the three audits every 90 days, not only after a drop. The technical audit covers Core Web Vitals and mobile display. The content audit covers freshness, depth, and E-E-A-T. The backlink audit checks for spam links. The [Google Search Console guide by role](/articles/google-search-console-by-role) shows which report each role checks in that audit. If a competitor with weaker content still outranks you after an update, do not copy the competitor. Google adjusts its systems over time. 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