Need advice. How to recover?

Hey all, I am looking for some insights and advice.

At the end of 2021 I launched a brand new niche affiliate website. By the mid of 2022 I had only about 25-30 blog posts published yet I managed to rank pretty well. Quite a few pages were in the top 10, I was getting traffic and some money that I kept reinvesting into link building and new content.

And then in January this year, all of a sudden my website got hit so that none of main keywords were reaching top 30. After the website got hit I did a bit of link building and published a couple of blog posts. But then stopped and did nothing as I was hesitant if the things would get back to normal. I just didn't want to risk any more money as I didn't get back what I invested from the start.

In May I saw some insignificant improvement (still outside of top 30). And over the last week I saw first few pages got back to the lower top 30 positions. Which is still a lot worse than it used to be as they used to rank top 5 last year. There is no manual penalty in GSC.

I have to mention that the website is 100% WH, the links are good and legit. I have another website ranking well with the same strategy and type of links. Also, I am not looking for BH methods or advice.

So here are my questions:
- Did anyone have a similar situation and managed to fully recover? What has been done for that?
- Is there a proven method to recover?

If technical side is OK, like server down often, slow loading or hidden noindex directives etc. Then it's either content or links.

The drop happened shortly after December link spam update. After it rolled out, there was a post-update adjustment like they use to do.

I strongly suggest to review your link profile, even though you think it's all good and legit.

It might be content though, make sure it addresses/answers the query properly. Good way to see what works is thoroughly check your current top competitors.

tiiberius said:

If technical side is OK, like server down often, slow loading or hidden noindex directives etc. Then it's either content or links.

The drop happened shortly after December link spam update. After it rolled out, there was a post-update adjustment like they use to do.

I strongly suggest to review your link profile, even though you think it's all good and legit.

It might be content though, make sure it addresses/answers the query properly. Good way to see what works is thoroughly check your current top competitors.

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Thanks for your input. It seemed like a penalty to me as I was targeting low competition keywords. And all the main keywords went out of top 100 first, then went back to below top 30 and stuck there for half year. Now they are climbing back slowly with no changes made at all on my end. This makes me think that the things might get to normal on its own, do you not think so? Otherwise how and why the positions started improving without any changes in content and/or backlinks?

And if I would follow your suggestions, what would be the right way to go about it? Start with the content first and then

feelfreeto said:

This makes me think that the things might get to normal on its own, do you not think so? Otherwise how and why the positions started improving without any changes in content and/or backlinks?

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It might get back on its own yes. Time is a big factor.

Initial ranking factors and re-ranking ones are different.

What you are experiencing now is what people call a "dance".

Raising trust, link count and relevant content will get you out of it.

feelfreeto said:

And if I would follow your suggestions, what would be the right way to go about it? Start with the content first and then

Click to expand...

Start with modifying existing content and see what impact it has.

If positive, add new one in similar fashion.

Review your link profile and remove toxic links. Keep on adding quality ones.