An SEO Strategy That Survives Core Updates
Every core update produces a wave of sites that lost 40% of their traffic overnight. The sites that do not move have a few things in common, and none of them are tricks.
Elena Marsh
Head of Search · 14 years in search · Ex-in-house at a 40-location dental group
The pattern
We have audited a lot of sites after core updates. The ones that get hit repeatedly share a shape: broad topical coverage, thin per-page depth, and a content library built to a publishing quota rather than to a purpose.
The ones that never move are narrow. They cover fewer topics, in more depth, with genuine expertise behind them.
Why breadth is the risk
Publishing on everything adjacent to your business dilutes what search engines understand you to be about. It also guarantees that most of your library is written by someone who does not deeply know the subject, because nobody is an expert in forty things.
That is precisely what core updates are designed to find.
The uncomfortable fix
Delete things.
Most sites we take over improve fastest from removing content, not adding it. Pages with no traffic, no links and no purpose are not neutral — they are evidence about the average quality of your site.
What to keep
Anything that ranks. Anything that converts. Anything that has earned a link. Anything a customer has ever quoted back to you.
Everything else is a candidate.
Frequently asked questions
How long does recovery from a core update take?
Realistically, until the next core update — Google rarely restores rankings between them. That means a hit in March may not resolve until the following release, which is why the recovery work has to start immediately rather than after a month of waiting to see if it bounces back on its own.
About the author
Elena Marsh
Head of Search
Elena has led SEO programmes for healthcare and ecommerce brands for 14 years, including six years in-house at a multi-site dental group. She writes about the gap between what SEO tools measure and what actually drives bookings.