Exactly. My site, since inception in 2012, has only been growing in traffic as well and was never affected by any update, as I tend to do things in the correct way. I did bought few PBNs, but like i said, they were very high quality and would pass manual review so there's no 1$ links in my portfolio. I've also invested in some blog outreach services, which paid off well (posted on related sites from different bloggers). I've been updating my site regularly (now have around 900 articles) and with every post the quality of my articles rises. I am adding premium related images, interlink the articles heavily, starting to cite sources professionally (with references, dates, authors etc). I'm really working hard to bring my site to a higher level by researching more and by giving the readers a better content. I never did, nor will, sell snake oil. My morals won't allow it. But at the end of the day I still run ads since I wish to pay off my hard work. Nothing bad in this, right? I'm not forcing users to click on ads. I am no doctor (and never will be as I am an electrical engineer) and there's is no theoretical chance that I ever reach webmb's level of authority, but the information I offer on my site is highly researched too. Seeing this massive drop (30-50%) makes me wonder whether to rather focus my effort in some other niche - like fishing or woodworking (which is also profitable), where authority is not that important? But if you extrapolate this "authority" thing - of course this should play a role in every niche, not just health? Why taking advice on fishing from someone who is not an authority in the area?
I get it that making wrong decisions or taking ill advice when it comes to health can be devastating (as opposed to taking advice about fishing from a non-fisherman), but then again - why only some of the health keywords are affected, and others are not?
