Playbook
Your Rankings Dropped. Negative SEO Attack or a Google Update?
Most sudden drops are updates or site problems, not attacks. Check in this order.
- Fixed price before work starts
- No hourly billing
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The steps
- 1Note the exact date traffic dropped.
- 2Check Google's Search Status Dashboard for an update that week.
- 3Check Search Console for a manual action.
- 4Check for site problems: pages blocked from search, errors, downtime.
- 5Check whether competitors dropped too.
- 6Only then look at new spammy links.
It's probably an update if
- The drop matches an update date
- Many sites in your industry moved too
It may be an attack if
- Thousands of spammy links appeared just before
- You got a manual action for unnatural links
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This playbook is part of Hacked Website Repair and SEO Recovery. See the model behind every playbook on the playbooks page.
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