Google ranking losses, penalties, and search updates.
Published articles
Diagnose a loss
Start here when the graph changed but Search Console has not named the cause.
- Why did my Google rankings drop? Google rankings drop after a tracking change, falling demand, pages leaving the index, a site change, a manual action or other pages overtaking yours. The day and the pages that fell show which.
- Google penalty checker: use Google's own reports What counts as a Google penalty, and how to check for a manual action, security issue, indexing failure, or measured search loss with Search Console and Google's official records.
Manual actions and spam
Use the exact notice, policy, serving behavior, or link record to define the repair, whether you make it or an SEO penalty removal company does.
- Google manual action removal How to investigate and fix a confirmed Google Search Console manual action before requesting review, including the cloaking parity test and keyword-stuffing repair.
- Google reconsideration requests When Google accepts reconsideration requests and how to write one that documents a completed manual-action repair.
- Google Disavow Tool in a manual-action cleanup How disavowal fits a confirmed unnatural-links manual-action cleanup after acquisition has stopped and good-faith removal has been attempted, and what Penguin and PBN links mean without a notice.
Ranking systems
Use current and historical update names as evidence without turning the date into a diagnosis.