Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

Major Ranking Drop After Core & Spam Updates – Looking for Guidance

         

guler98faruk

3:27 pm on Sep 19, 2025 (gmt 0)

Top Contributors Of The Month



Hello everyone,

My website had been performing very well for a long time, but after the March updates it started to experience fluctuations, which continued until September. With the spam update that began on September 17, almost all of my keywords dropped out of the top 100.

Pages are still being indexed, but my keywords have almost completely vanished. The biggest drop occurred on my category pages, while my product pages were affected to a lesser extent.

At this point, I’d like to get your opinions on what path I should follow. Which steps should I prioritize first?

Thank you.

markRg

11:05 pm on Sep 19, 2025 (gmt 0)

Top Contributors Of The Month



Hello, guler98faruk
can't really help, but I've been observing a similar pattern for many years.
On some sites, after Google updates, traffic drops to zero, on others, it comes back.
I have no idea why this happens and have stopped trying to find patterns. I just wait about six months until a new update occurs and the site recovers. Some sites never recover.

I've noticed this happens with 'small' sites, where daily traffic is up to 10k.
The age of the domain doesn’t matter, this happens even with domains that are 10+ years old

Maybe someone can give advice regarding the links.
I don't have experience with this

not2easy

1:32 pm on Sep 21, 2025 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



It could be related to the recent change noted here: [webmasterworld.com...]

Now Google tools and other rank-check tools that rely on Google services were limited to 10 results rather than 100 as formerly used. So whatever method you use to track rank or keywords may not show more than 10 results.

I would not make sudden changes to try to get to the way it was before.

tangor

12:26 pm on Sep 22, 2025 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



First, Don't Panic!

g's updates are for g ... not webmasters. Every once in a while the update goes too far and collateral damage occurs. This is usually corrected in the next update... weeks or months down the line. Do know that EVERY update by g is designed to narrow and nail down any income loss for g/advertisers so former traffic RARELY ever returns---better, but never as good.

Those of us around since the beginning have seen this cycle on a routine basis. Every year the keywords have been diminished (due to abuse among other things) and it looks like g is about to narrow it down even further. Keywords still work, but keywords that are NOT really consistent with CONTENT and INTENT are likely to be deprecated in the future.

Plan accordingly.

Meanwhile, just make sure your content is unique, fresh, ORIGINAL, and fills INTENT.

guler98faruk

3:48 pm on Sep 29, 2025 (gmt 0)

Top Contributors Of The Month



As of September 17, the number of ranking keywords dropped from 6,000 to 1,000. There are no manual actions in Google Search Console, and there doesn’t seem to be any indexing issues. However, for some pages, keywords have almost completely vanished and can’t even rank within the top 100. In this case, what steps should I take?

tangor

5:31 am on Sep 30, 2025 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Work with the 1,000 left until the next update takes that number down to 60. Keywords ALONE are not the answer to web success. Work on content, community, and brand. Become UNIQUE. Be of VALUE.

Meanwhile, don't do something stupid chasing keywords. That might make the present situation even WORSE.*

*Old school advice, been there, done that, since 1996.

Kendo

9:59 pm on Sep 30, 2025 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Any idea what this "spam update" looks for?