8 year old ranking site killed by Google 2 weeks ago

Hey guys. Looks like a Google update on the 2nd of May completely destroyed my site. Does anyone have any info about what they specifically updated around this time, or any ideas on how I can get back to ranking? I have never experienced such a hard crash, especially for a site that has been established for almost a decade.

Weirdly enough, it also seems to affect some traffic sources like AI in my case.

It's too early to say that. There is hope. May be a Google dance.

I would add new content even new sub niche (to make it broader) allow it to get indexed and build backlinks. After all if the site is not bouncing back after 2 weeks I would build more backlinks aggressively to get other engines' attention. While Bing exactly works similarly to Google I find DuckDuckGo loves more aggressively. The search engine depends on the audience. E.g. if it's a black or gray hat niche DuckDuckGo is actually better than Google.

first rule of google updates: don't do anything until the update finishes!

The reason being, sometimes sites that have been wrongly affected can come back. So, instead of making changes that might actually screw you it's best to wait for the update to finish first, and then make the necessary adjustments.

This being said, I'm not seeing anything about a recent google update anywhere (on google's official page, or on SEJ / SEL), are you sure there was an update?

Also, I'm curious: was your site using FAQ rich results to get traffic? Because google have made these obsolete and if your site relied on these results for traffic then that's probably what's happened:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage

You’re definitely not alone. A lot of older sites got hit around early May, especially sites relying heavily on affiliate/SEO content and AI-driven traffic.
From what I’ve seen, Google seems to be pushing harder on content quality, topical authority and user engagement signals. I’d start by auditing thin pages, improving internal linking, and checking if AI traffic sources dropped together with organic rankings.

That’s a site wide hit from the latest update go through your pages and delete any thin or low quality stuff that doesn't add real value to the reader. Check who's ranking now if it's all big brands or reddit you need to boost your brand signals and social presence to get back on top.

I think Your Content Is Low?

Man, seeing a decade old site tank like that is brutal. If the crash happened right around the first week of May, it sounds like you got caught in the crosshairs of a core algorithm update targeting unhelpful or over optimized content. Since you mentioned AI traffic was affected, Google might have flagged your content patterns as being too templated or lacking fresh, human insight. Your best bet right now is to do a deep audit, check for any recent technical footprints.