Duplicate Content Question

Hello BHW Peeps,

I have a journey that is failing miserably since Google's last big update (end of May, 2022). All of my keyword ranking has been erased, zero clicks from Google. Around 500 articles.

My question and issue. Let's say that I have a category of articles around windshield washers for cars. Instead of having one page that focused on windshield wipers for cars, I decided to create a separate page for each car make/model with very similar content.

Example:

Best Windshield Wipers for Car
Best Windshield Wipers for Dodge Caravan
Best Windshield Wipers for Dodge Durango
Best Windshield Wipers for Dodge Charger
Best Windshield Wipers for Dodge Challenger
Best Windshield Wipers for Ford Fiesta
Best Windshield Wipers for .........
Best Windshield Wipers for......

Now, what I did do was to duplicate the content for the keyword "Best Windshield Wipers for Car" and replace all the Car* words in that article (8,000 word article or so). Let's say that the word Car came up 70 times throughout the 8,000 word article. I would just replace that word with another word (for example, replace "Car" with "Dodge Caravan"). I was actually doing pretty good in terms of rankings and everything up until this last update in May, 2022. Any thoughts or suggestions on this all? Is there a way that I might be able to salvage some of this traffic? Is there a way that I might be able to still utilize some of these articles? Its just so weird that Google eliminated 100% of my traffic and impressions from their SERPS right as this update hit. Go figure, its as though they specifically targeted my site.





The weird thing about this all is that even though it is duplicate content, I was still targeting individual keywords and all of my articles/pages would have been of pretty good benefit to my visitors. I mean, there are a bunch of universal windshield wipers out there that would fit all sort of vehicles. So, why is it that my site got hit so hard?

If you think about it, what about a site out there that is selling body kits for various different car makes and models? Aren't these sites targeting individual car brands and makes with their individual pages? Not only that, their pages have hardly any content on them, just a product description. My pages at least covered things like basic maintenance, FAQ's, what to do and not to do, etc.. etc..

Its just so weird. On one hand Google seemed like they were liking what I was doing, and all of a sudden this update destroyed everything I had going.

Anyhow, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions about any of this? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks Goro333

I think it's because the content you're creating is too similar. (Actually, I'm sure you already know this answer, so it's not satisfying...)

But the first rule of thumb is always that the content you write should be for the people who search for it.

Write what real people like, not what fits a simple SEO rule.

When you Google keyword A, Google is giving you a lot of hints about what people who search for keyword A want.

When you write individual keywords, try Googling them all one by one and see what Google tells you. Google gives you more hints than you think