Lost Traffic on my Website after Google SPAM Update

[catchsri]

I have lost 60-70% of traffic on my website after the Google SPAM update. This happened exactly on October 19th and I do not see any recovery so far. Here is what happened according to my initial analysis.

1. All the URLs are still indexed when I see them in the google search console ( I have around 300 posts)
2. When I perform site:example.com I see that it still lists all the URLs as indexed in the search results
3. When I specifically search the keyword I do not see them in the SERPs. A lot of keywords were ranked 1-10 but now it does not appear in the SERPs in any position

My Analysis after the Site Audit in Ahref and SEMRush

1. First and Foremost, I have not created any SPAM content or copied from any other website. All the articles are written by experts. No keyword stuffing, no cloaking, no security issues, no manual actions so far.
2. The site was ranking on top consistently for a period of 1 year and suddenly it lost due to the SPAM update.
3. There was link spam which I observed in AHREF and SEMRUSH, not done by me but there are tons of sites that were copying my content or linking to the article

I need some SEO experts help who can analyze my site better and provide feedback to recover from the SPAM update.

 

[wiaderny01]

A lot of people are struggling with the recent spam update. You have to stay consistent and keep doing what you did before.
Most of the links from spam sites are being ignored by Google.

I can take a look at your site, but many whitehat sites got hit, so no one is really going to tell you what this update was about unless you did some obvious blackhat things, like AI content (which you didn't) and bad PBN links, etc.

 

[PrimalMe]

Same shit happened to me (local website, not English), but my website was kinda spammy. Daily traffic dropped from 10K to 2K. And it'll go to zero probably.

 

[catchsri]

A lot of people are struggling with the recent spam update. You have to stay consistent and keep doing what you did before.
Most of the links from spam sites are being ignored by Google.

I can take a look at your site, but many whitehat sites got hit, so no one is really going to tell you what this update was about unless you did some obvious blackhat things, like AI content (which you didn't) and bad PBN links, etc.

There are two things that i recall may be a blackhat thing.

1. Like most of them when the site was launched I have added 4-5 comment backlinks and profile backlinks. It was almost an year back but later i realized that comment and profile backlink doesn't work so i didn't create any backlinks later on.
2. I had submitted my RSS URL on few syndication sites (Community sites that aggregate content), i am not sure if this is considered a black hat. I had submitted it because it was a community site and i use to get visitors from that site.

 

[wiaderny01]

There are two things that i recall may be a blackhat thing.

1. Like most of them when the site was launched I have added 4-5 comment backlinks and profile backlinks. It was almost an year back but later i realized that comment and profile backlink doesn't work so i didn't create any backlinks later on.
2. I had submitted my RSS URL on few syndication sites (Community sites that aggregate content), i am not sure if this is considered a black hat. I had submitted it because it was a community site and i use to get visitors from that site.

I wouldn't say any of these made your site drop in rankings. Google is unpredictable nowadays. If I were you, I'd just keep going with the site, not looking at the rankings. It'll recover one day. I got hit many times, and the site went back to the previous state or even got a boost without literally changing anything.

 

[catchsri]

I wouldn't say any of these made your site drop in rankings. Google is unpredictable nowadays. If I were you, I'd just keep going with the site, not looking at the rankings. It'll recover one day. I got hit many times, and the site went back to the previous state or even got a boost without literally changing anything.

How long it usually took to recover?

 

[wiaderny01]

How long it usually took to recover?

Till the next major update, sadly. These updates are really random. You could be 100% whitehat with great content and high-quality links, and you can still get hit.

 

[castoro]

got hit too, on a non english site.
Content is lightly edited AI generated.

 

[Wolfy Chan]

ugh ikr?? Same shit happened to a friend of mine. Her cute little site just lost traffic ALL OF THE SUDDEN and shes like really really sad about it..

 

[pal_2599]

my website is not got affected by this Update but my recent articles are not indexing which I posted on different guest post websites. can someone tell how to index them

 

[mrneedles]

I have lost 60-70% of traffic on my website after the Google SPAM update. This happened exactly on October 19th and I do not see any recovery so far. Here is what happened according to my initial analysis.

1. All the URLs are still indexed when I see them in the google search console ( I have around 300 posts)
2. When I perform site:example.com I see that it still lists all the URLs as indexed in the search results
3. When I specifically search the keyword I do not see them in the SERPs. A lot of keywords were ranked 1-10 but now it does not appear in the SERPs in any position

My Analysis after the Site Audit in Ahref and SEMRush

1. First and Foremost, I have not created any SPAM content or copied from any other website. All the articles are written by experts. No keyword stuffing, no cloaking, no security issues, no manual actions so far.
2. The site was ranking on top consistently for a period of 1 year and suddenly it lost due to the SPAM update.
3. There was link spam which I observed in AHREF and SEMRUSH, not done by me but there are tons of sites that were copying my content or linking to the article

I need some SEO experts help who can analyze my site better and provide feedback to recover from the SPAM update.

Any updates on your end? Have you seen any recovery?

 

[JessicaSergey]

Anyone seeing recovery ?

I am seeing slightly up movement after i started editing posts on a regular basis. But not much.

 

[catchsri]

Any updates on your end? Have you seen any recovery?

there is a slight recovery but still down by 50% at least.

 

[rohitlohia211]

Anyone seeing recovery ?

I am seeing slightly up movement after i started editing posts on a regular basis. But not much.

I have edited my articles too but when i checked my search console, google never crawled anything after 18 Oct 2022 so it makes no sense to update my articles when google is not even crawling the site anymore. Did you checked your search console? when was your last crawl happened by google?

 

[KLASEO]

same problem for me

 

[catchsri]

I suspect Ezoic Ads maybe one of the causes why my site got hit with SPAM update. Ezoic's does auto placement of Ads and I have seen at least in a page it populates around 8-12 ads. This also reduces the user experience. I have seen few other sites which are on Ezoic or similar another platform where they have displayed too may ads has got hit after the SPAM update.

This is my analysis and could be one of the factors is what I think? Can any one else confirm this behavior?

 

[shabushabu]

Google October 2022 Spam Update : (at least) 7 types of websites shot down by Google. Techniques, patterns, impact

1. New adult websites - Large and old Adult websites seem to have successfully overcome the SpamBrain update, but many newcomers who have received significant visibility in a short time have been shot down

2. Websites (intentionally or unwillingly) having adult content

3. New streaming websites - the same as with adult sites, a lot of new arrived streaming websites in 2021-2022 are shot down by the update

Read full tweet: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1588485278574018565.html

 

[inkbotdesign]

I suspect Ezoic Ads maybe one of the causes why my site got hit with SPAM update. Ezoic's does auto placement of Ads and I have seen at least in a page it populates around 8-12 ads. This also reduces the user experience. I have seen few other sites which are on Ezoic or similar another platform where they have displayed too may ads has got hit after the SPAM update.

This is my analysis and could be one of the factors is what I think? Can any one else confirm this behavior?

I'm on Ezoic and noticed the same thing. Revenue naturally dropped too

One suggestion (I haven't tried yet) is to check the setting to not show ads above the fold. It's somewhere in the ads placement option.

 

[catchsri]

I'm on Ezoic and noticed the same thing. Revenue naturally dropped too

One suggestion (I haven't tried yet) is to check the setting to not show ads above the fold. It's somewhere in the ads placement option.

ok thats good to know. Also, could you please confirm if you had followed any black hat technique or AI content on the site? just to nail down why the SPAM update has impacted our sites.

1. AI Content - All the content is handwritten and its of good quality
2. Keyword Stuffing - I have analyzed the entire site and found in certain places the main keyword is repeated at least 6-7 times in some articles. I am planning to remove those repetitions
3. Link Building - No Link building./ black hat technique. But since many of my keywords were ranking on top there are other sites that have less domain authority have linked my domain. Need to disavow all these links
4. Ezoic Ads - Most of the pages show up at least 8-12 ads which i am going to reduce it to 4-6
5. Outdate Content - There are few outdated content on my site which i am going to take off as there is no traffic coming to those pages.

Can other also provide some analysis on these categories so that we can get more insights and fix the issue. More transparency is better and helps finding the issue faster

 

[inkbotdesign]

ok thats good to know. Also, could you please confirm if you had followed any black hat technique or AI content on the site? just to nail down why the SPAM update has impacted our sites.

1. AI Content - All the content is handwritten and its of good quality
2. Keyword Stuffing - I have analyzed the entire site and found in certain places the main keyword is repeated at least 6-7 times in some articles. I am planning to remove those repetitions
3. Link Building - No Link building./ black hat technique. But since many of my keywords were ranking on top there are other sites that have less domain authority have linked my domain. Need to disavow all these links
4. Ezoic Ads - Most of the pages show up at least 8-12 ads which i am going to reduce it to 4-6
5. Outdate Content - There are few outdated content on my site which i am going to take off as there is no traffic coming to those pages.

Can other also provide some analysis on these categories so that we can get more insights and fix the issue. More transparency is better and helps finding the issue faster

Zero blackhat, minimal link building (really not much at all), I use AI content on occasion, but it's humanly edited, proofread etc (like 2-3 hours per 2000 word article - so its good).

I push articles through Frase, and wouldn't say keyword stuffing is an issue.

Ezoic ad settings are set to User Experience focused as there were too many on the default. I've chosen not to use the annoying ads on mobile (things like the floating video and ads between page loads).

Oldest content is always being updated, typically anything over 2 years.