For me the throtteling results in a plateau traffic since may. I can do what I want, but the traffic remains the same.
This is definitely a real phenomenon I have seen myself as well. It started exactly after the May update.
One of my sites was negatively affected by the May update (-70%) and since then traffic (and rankings) have plateaued at almost the exact same level. Like, you can almost draw a line from May 4 to today in Google Analytics. No major downturn or upturn at all. Always, every single time it's within +/-5% fluctuation.
This, under the condition that several things have changed since May:
- all the site content has been completely remade and updated by real experts and not freelance writers
- referring domains increased from 150 to 600
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ALL the new referring domains were 100% natural (like, actual real natural links added by the sites themselves without even reaching out to them). They linked to real and genuine researches we published on the site and promoted on social media where the authors probably saw them and decided on their own to write about them on their sites.
- Most of the new links were from big mainstream sites, like businessinsider, etc.
But traffic and rankings seem to have been capped at a maximum level. There has been almost zero movement either up or down since the May update. Like I said, you could almost draw a straight line from May to now.
I think it's related to whatever the May update did. Perhaps it put sites it deemed "low quality" or "low EAT" or whatever into a category where those sites are prevented from ranking further or improving until substantial changes are made and the changes are recognized during a subsequent core update.
This is why I'm skeptical in JM's comments that you can "recover" without a new core update.
We went from 150 links to 600+ (ALL real editorial - not even outreach - on mainstream and legitimate sites) + a complete site overhaul and it did nothing whatsoever. Literally zero. Like, I'm not even exaggerating. It's almost a complete flat line since May.
It does seem it needs another core update for any changes to be recognized. Or the changes we made just weren't sufficient enough to meet the "recovery" threshold.
What definitely seems to be the case though is that core update "recoveries" don't seem to be a gradual thing, as in, you do some changes and then improve somewhat. If you have been affected by a core update then there does seem to be a threshold (which seems to be very high) you need to hit before the throttling stops.
I'm not overly upset about any of the above, tbh. I didn't mean this post as a rant, just an interesting case study and theories on how core updates may work.
Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2020
