Google Traffic Decrease for No Apparent Reason Since February 2025.

Good evening everyone, Since February 2025, I've noticed a progressive decline in my Google rankings.

I should point out that on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo, I still maintain excellent results.

On Google, however, I've always had an average keyword ranking of 7/8; now the average is 17.

I recently removed many backlinks deemed toxic by SemRush, and this caused my rankings to drop further.

For several months, I've been trying to reverse this trend, including buying many backlinks from authoritative sites, but so far, I'm seeing very few results on Google. I'm going crazy, I don't know how to reverse this trend. (I've attached my graph.) Has anyone else encountered similar issues? Can you give me any suggestions on how to resolve the problem? Thanks!

The drop likely comes from Google’s February updates plus sudden backlink changes, so recovery needs steady authority building, content refresh, and a natural link growth pattern.

Thank you for your reply, even though I've been updating and checking for months, but with little results. I'm also shocked to see that my rankings on Bing and Yahoo remain very good, and I don't understand why they don't on Google!

Andrea Berti said:

I'm also shocked to see that my rankings on Bing and Yahoo remain very good, and I don't understand why they don't on Google!

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why are you shocked? Everyone who knows even a little about SEO knows that Google and Bing are 2 different search engines (although, I did read somewhere a few years ago that Bing had been acquired by Google behind closed doors, so they're probably the same company now...)

But anyway, even if Bing are not part of Alphabet yet (the company that owns Google), there are many differences between Bing and Google, in the sense that...

- Google is probably a decade or more ahead of Bing in terms of everything (quantity of data acquired, ease and quickness in setting up the rankings, etc)
- Google regulates the traffic and the SERPs constantly
- Google has way more data than Bing and Yahoo (probably combined), so they can afford to be more granular in their regulation
- the competition is way higher on Google than on Bing, so it's not shocking at all that you can rank easier in Bing than in Google
- and many other reasons that I'm sure are at play here, but I can't think of them at the moment...

So, actually I am the one who is shocked that you are shocked since there are such obvious differences between Google and Bing (and Yahoo if you want to include them too)

Andrea Berti said:

Since February 2025, I've noticed a progressive decline in my Google rankings.

Click to expand...

well, I'm still going to say it: it's possible that google are doing this to you intentionally to force you to buy their ads (that's how google make their money)

If that's not it, then you should start by analyzing the pages and the keywords that lost the rankings since February and see if you can bring those back, either by making a few well placed internal links to them, or updating the content, or even pointing a few quality backlinks at those pages.

When you analyze the pages that lost rankings also look into the anchors of the backlinks that are pointing to these pages as anchor texts are one of the easiest things to screw up as a newbie SEO, and it's possible that one of your anchor texts has too high occurrence when compared to the other anchor texts.

It would also help if you ran a full site audit using software like Screaming Frog or the alikes, because it's possible that some of those pages have encountered an error somehow (maybe you've moved content around and forgot to 301 the URLs, or you've deleted content, or noindexed important pages by accident, there are lots of things that could impact a constantly growing site, so you need a service or tool to monitor your site health 24/7 and to alert you of any changes that happen...)

Last but not least, I think there have been quite a few major updates this year, so it's worth going through the list of google updates to see what they've targeted, and at what time, and compare those times to the times when your site got affected. And if these times match, it's 99% certain that you've been affected by said update(s)...

Lots of work, I know, but that's modern day SEO for you: you need to slave like a mule just to keep google raking in few extra billions after each update, so get busy with this, or keep riding the Bing / Yahoo traffic while it lasts

Google’s been rolling out core updates that hit sites differently than Bing/Yahoo so the drop might not be just backlinks. Sometimes removing too many links at once can make things worse too.

Andrea Berti said:

Good evening everyone, Since February 2025, I've noticed a progressive decline in my Google rankings.

I should point out that on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo, I still maintain excellent results.

On Google, however, I've always had an average keyword ranking of 7/8; now the average is 17.

I recently removed many backlinks deemed toxic by SemRush, and this caused my rankings to drop further.

For several months, I've been trying to reverse this trend, including buying many backlinks from authoritative sites, but so far, I'm seeing very few results on Google. I'm going crazy, I don't know how to reverse this trend. (I've attached my graph.) Has anyone else encountered similar issues? Can you give me any suggestions on how to resolve the problem? Thanks!

Click to expand...

It's possible that your ranks went down because of a Google core update and the elimination of backlinks that were harmful but still passing authority. Instead of buying links, focus on making your site more trustworthy (EEAT), getting high-quality content, and getting natural and relevant backlinks. Recovery normally takes a few months.

You can rank #1 on Google and still won't get much traffic anymore. AI overviews have taken it.

Ensure your content can be processed by the AI engines and use other alternative traffic sources like forum posts.

Andrea Berti said:

Good evening everyone, Since February 2025, I've noticed a progressive decline in my Google rankings.

I should point out that on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo, I still maintain excellent results.

On Google, however, I've always had an average keyword ranking of 7/8; now the average is 17.

I recently removed many backlinks deemed toxic by SemRush, and this caused my rankings to drop further.

For several months, I've been trying to reverse this trend, including buying many backlinks from authoritative sites, but so far, I'm seeing very few results on Google. I'm going crazy, I don't know how to reverse this trend. (I've attached my graph.) Has anyone else encountered similar issues? Can you give me any suggestions on how to resolve the problem? Thanks!

Click to expand...

It sounds like you’ve been hit by a mix of Google algorithm updates and the backlink cleanup. Unlike Bing/Yahoo, Google is much stricter with link quality, content depth, and site trust signals. When you removed toxic links, your site likely lost link equity, and buying backlinks (even from “authoritative” sites) can sometimes hurt more than help if Google sees them as unnatural.


My suggestions:

• Audit content quality – make sure pages truly satisfy search intent and are better than competitors.
• Diversify traffic – don’t rely only on links; strengthen internal linking, update old posts, and improve technical SEO (speed, mobile, crawlability).
• Rebuild authority naturally – focus on relevant guest posts, digital PR, or partnerships instead of purchased links.
• Monitor algorithm updates – Google has rolled out several in 2025, so your niche may be affected.

You’re not alone—many SEOs report the same drop this year. The key is to rebuild trust and topical authority slowly; rankings often bounce back once Google re-evaluates your site.


Do you want me to check what recent Google updates (Feb–Aug 2025) might have caused this decline in your niche?

I’ve seen this happen before — cleaning too many “toxic” backlinks at once can cause a big drop. Sometimes those links were actually helping. I’d focus on rebuilding with branded/niche links slowly and keep engagement high (CTR, dwell time). Google usually stabilizes after a while.