The problem
Google clicks fell from about 290 a day in July 2025 to about 50 a day in October 2026, a drop of 82%. Comparing the same three months a year apart, clicks fell from 25,525 to 4,551.
The owner, Stacey Peters, had no clear answer. Her analytics showed only a handful of visitors, so she could not tell whether the site was penalised, broken or simply ranking lower. She needed to know what happened, why, and what to fix first.
What I checked
I matched every drop in the data to a date, a cause and a page, then confirmed each finding on the live site.
- Search Console: 16 months of daily data, year-over-year comparisons, the windows around each Google update, pages, queries, devices and countries.
- Every search with the pages ranking for it: 25,000 rows, used to find posts competing with each other.
- Indexing, crawl stats, sitemaps, Core Web Vitals and manual actions.
- Google Analytics 4, compared with Search Console to test the tracking.
- Backlinks in Ahrefs, to rule out spam links.
- The live site: top posts read line by line, internal and affiliate links, images, alt text and the trust pages.
What I found
The site had no penalty. Traffic fell in stages during Google's December 2025 and May 2026 core updates, which re-scored the site as a whole. The drop was the same on mobile and desktop and across every main country.
| Finding | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Content quality and trust | Top guides heavily rewritten, outdated facts, no author box on posts |
| Site-wide changes | Renamed URLs, hundreds of posts bulk-edited, a theme change during the drop |
| Posts competing with each other | 14 confirmed groups, checked search by search |
| Internal links | Menu and footer pages got the links; content posts averaged 11, and links inside posts often pointed to unrelated topics |
| Affiliate links | Affiliate links in the main menu and in posts not marked as sponsored |
| Images | Broken galleries from deleted files; 43% of sampled images had no useful alt text |
| Tracking | A consent banner and duplicate tags meant Analytics missed most visitors |
The most useful finding was the simplest: 73 pages caused 80% of the loss. Instead of 800+ posts, the owner had a focused list to start with.
The recovery plan
The plan was written so the owner could carry it out herself. Every step names the exact menu, field and button in WordPress or Search Console.
Quick fixes
Analytics tracking, sitemap, broken images, affiliate links, author box
Top 20 pages
First-hand refresh, answer-first layout, alt text, internal links, trust pages
Overlapping posts
Merge 14 competing groups with 301 redirects, fix 25 weak posts, next 53 pages
Mobile experience
Image sizes, ad layout shift, delayed pop-up, Core Web Vitals
An Excel action list turned the plan into 100+ trackable tasks, each with a status column and a progress summary. Delivery also included a 16-page report and a one-hour walkthrough call.
Client feedback
★★★★★"I enjoyed the process and the SEO plan going forward. Awesome feedback and knowledge of SEO."
Stacey Peters, Duffel Bag Spouse Travels
Rated 5 out of 5 for communication, quality of delivery and value. Stacey is now working through the plan. Recovery after a core update usually shows at the next update once fixes are in place, typically within 3 to 6 months.
Has your traffic dropped and you don't know why? I'll find the cause and give you a clear, step-by-step plan to recover it.
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