After a record month my site got whacked by google

[HowardVent]

Well, this year has been quite the roller coaster!

My main site got hit by google in the April product update and got hit again in one of the summer updates.

I spent July - September making tons of changes.

• Adding internal links
• Improving site structure
• Building new content in my top categories
• Deleted some thin content
• Fixed broken links
• improved site speed
• and about 20 more things

All of which finally seemed to be paying off as November was a fantastic month for me. $7700 in revenue and a solid rebound in traffic. Obviously a good portion of the increased revenue was due to Black Friday and RPMs being seasonally higher.

Then last week Google released another product update. I thought I was doing fine through the weekend. Monday's traffic was down 15%. Tuesday's 25%. Wednesday was down 35%.

I'm following the general advice of not making any changes right away. I'm hoping google reverses the trend as the update continues to roll out.

Anyone have any advice for handling another hit from google?

 

[Ryuzaki]

My very broad and general advice to every site that's been hit (or wants to fend off a hit) is here:
Recovering Failing SEO Sites with the Kitchen Sink Method

It has 29 steps to take to turn over every little stone and find whatever issue it is that Google has a problem with that has been hiding from you. In the process of seeking that hidden issue, you'll be improving every other possible issue along the way.

The result can end up looking like this (this was my site that was having issues that I employed the method on):

All of that is worth a look, and you've already been embarking on a similar path it seems. But it also seems that you're being hit specifically by the Google Product Updates.

If you check out my post here in the Google Algorithm Updates thread, it lists the new aspects of this type of content that Google is taking issue with as well as listing their best practices for this type of content. They tell us exactly what they've trained the algorithms to look for. You could probably create a formula or template to remodel all of your present and future reviews on that would cover these items. It'll probably call for a giant overhaul of your content, but it sounds worth it. Google wants to love your site, it seems. You just have to let it.

 

[getRichOrBT]

How many posts does your site currently have? In terms of monetisation, what split have you gone for in terms of ads/ affiliate?