Site dropped - how long to wait before making major changes?

drop happened before Jagger update - maybe just 'everflux'

[elaineb]

this is the second time this year the site has dropped from the top listings - last time it was down for 9 weeks and then bounced back.

The site dropped approximately 40/50 places for ALL search terms, a full week BEFORE the Jagger update started and hasn't moved at all during this time.

- how long would you wait before assuming this drop is permanent and start making major changes.?

[bsterz]

I generally wait 3 months. Then I only change a few pages and wait and see.

[WebFusion]

Had a similar thing occur to an all original content site on July 15th - dropped 40-50 spots across the board for all search terms that had previously been top 5 (for over 3 years).

Since there is nothing wrong with the site (no recip links pages, no dup content, no www/non-www issues due to a long-standing redirect), I've simply kept updating the site as I normally would, and it has hovered between 20-50 since then. Frankly, I'm not sure what to change - so I hevn't changed anything. In another 3 months I may revisit the issue.