First, find out what actually happened
Most “penalties” aren’t penalties. They’re core updates, migrations that lost URLs, or indexing problems that built up quietly. Each needs a completely different response, and guessing wrong costs months.
What we check, in order
Is there a manual action?
Search Console says so plainly. If there isn’t one — and usually there isn’t — it’s not a penalty and the fix is different.
Does the date match an update?
A drop aligning with a core update is a different problem from one that started the week you relaunched.
Did URLs change?
The most common cause we see. A redesign without a URL map loses rankings that look exactly like a penalty.
Is it indexing or ranking?
Pages dropping out of the index and pages ranking lower are different failures with different fixes.
Is it everything or one section?
Site-wide points one way; a single template or category points somewhere much more specific.
Did anything technical change?
A robots.txt edit, a noindex left on after staging, a canonical change, a CDN rule. Small changes, large consequences.
What recovery actually looks like
- Manual action. Fix the stated violation, document it, file a reconsideration request. Usually recoverable, sometimes quickly.
- Lost URLs after a migration. Build the redirect map that should have existed. Often the fastest meaningful recovery available.
- Technical blocker. A noindex or robots rule left in place. Removed in minutes, recovers over weeks.
- Core update. No switch to flip. It’s quality and relevance work over months, and anyone promising faster is guessing.
- Cannibalisation. Near-duplicate pages competing. Merge them and consolidate the signals.
Being honest about odds
Some drops recover fully and some don’t. What we’ll tell you up front:
- Technical causes recover well. Fix the blocker, traffic returns.
- Core update drops are slower and partial. You’re being re-assessed against competitors who also improved.
- Some sites don’t come back, and you deserve to hear that rather than fund twelve months of hope.
The diagnosis comes first precisely so you can decide whether recovery is worth paying for.
Common questions
How do we know if it’s a penalty?
Search Console → Security & Manual Actions. If it’s empty, you don’t have a manual action, whatever anyone has told you. That rules out the one thing most people assume and redirects the investigation.
Should we disavow links?
Almost never, and it’s frequently recommended by people selling the service. Google ignores most low-quality links on its own, and a careless disavow file removes links that were helping you.
Traffic dropped right after our redesign.
Then it’s almost certainly the URL map, not a penalty. That’s recoverable, and the sooner the better — redirects applied late recover less than redirects applied early.
How long does diagnosis take?
Usually a few days with Search Console and analytics access. The diagnosis is a fixed fee, so you know what caused it before deciding what to spend on fixing it.
When did it drop, and by how much?
Those two facts plus Search Console access are usually enough to narrow it down fast. Send them and we’ll tell you what we think happened.