/post-core-update-recovery

name: post-core-update-recovery
description: 'Use when a website experienced a sudden visibility/ranking drop that correlates with a published Google Core Update — symptoms include broad ranking loss across many keywords in a short window (1–6 weeks), Sistrix VI dropping 30 %+ from peak, sales/leads falling despite no technical changes, the owner saying "we used to rank, now we don''t" but pages still load and index normally. Distinguishes Core-Update damage from CWV/technical drops and produces a phased 6–12 month recovery plan focused on Authority and EEAT. Pure-Markdown framework, no tools or MCP access needed — for a data-driven diagnosis via Sistrix/DataForSEO MCP that writes befund.json use recovery-diagnose instead.'
user-invocable: true
argument-hint: '[domain]'
allowed-tools: [Read, Grep, Glob]
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Max Schottke
  version: '0.5.4'
  category: marketing

Post-Core-Update Recovery

Overview

A specific recovery framework for domains that **lost visibility after a Google Core Update**. Core insight from real March/April 2026 recovery cases: *Authority items > technical hygiene*. Recovery 6–12 months, not 6–8 weeks.

When to use

• VI drop correlates timely with a published Core Update (see Google Search Status Dashboard)
• Drop is **broad** (many keywords simultaneously, not pinpoint)
• Pages keep indexing normally, no technical break
• GSC shows no manual action
• Pattern: 1–6 weeks of decline, then bottoming out

**Don't use for:**

• Point keyword losses → usually on-page issue, not core update
• Drop coincides with migration / theme change / robots change → that's technical, not core
• Drop is <20 % from peak → can be normal market noise

Diagnosis decision tree

digraph diag {
    "Visibility dropped?" [shape=diamond];
    "Correlates with Core Update date?" [shape=diamond];
    "Brand keywords also dropped?" [shape=diamond];
    "Manual action in GSC?" [shape=diamond];
    "CWV suddenly red?" [shape=diamond];
    "Apply Recovery (this skill)" [shape=box,style=filled,fillcolor=lightblue];
    "Technical problem first" [shape=box,style=filled,fillcolor=lightyellow];
    "Penalty workflow, not here" [shape=box,style=filled,fillcolor=lightcoral];
    "Performance-first workflow" [shape=box,style=filled,fillcolor=lightyellow];
    "Market noise, observe" [shape=box];

    "Visibility dropped?" -> "Correlates with Core Update date?" [label="yes"];
    "Correlates with Core Update date?" -> "Manual action in GSC?" [label="yes"];
    "Manual action in GSC?" -> "Penalty workflow, not here" [label="yes"];
    "Manual action in GSC?" -> "Brand keywords also dropped?" [label="no"];
    "Brand keywords also dropped?" -> "Technical problem first" [label="yes"];
    "Brand keywords also dropped?" -> "CWV suddenly red?" [label="no"];
    "CWV suddenly red?" -> "Performance-first workflow" [label="yes"];
    "CWV suddenly red?" -> "Apply Recovery (this skill)" [label="no"];
    "Correlates with Core Update date?" -> "Market noise, observe" [label="no"];
}

If brand keywords are intact and CWV is stable but generic keywords are broadly lost → this is the core signature of a Core Update hit.

Required diagnostic steps (day 1)

1. **Document the Core Update date** — see https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history. Match Sistrix drop date exactly. 2. **Measure the Sistrix drop diff** — monthly values 12 months before vs 1–3 months after the update. 3. **DataForSEO ranked-keywords diff** — compare top positions pre vs post update. Specific URL clusters affected or distributed uniformly? 4. **GSC click diff** — which URLs lost most traffic? Pattern visible (all blog posts? all product pages? all YMYL topics?) 5. **EEAT audit of lost top URLs** — author visible? Sources cited? Last-updated stamp? Trust layer (About, Imprint, Reviews)? 6. **Self-canonical audit** — check whether competing pages all carry self-referencing canonical tags. CMS platforms with SEO plugins (Shopware/DreiscSeo, WordPress/Yoast, Magento) commonly set `isCanonical=true` on ALL pages by default. When keyword overlap exists between pages, self-canonicals cause invisible cannibalization: Google sees competing versions without a consolidation signal. Identify clusters with 2+ URLs targeting overlapping keywords, verify each page's `<link rel="canonical">`, and flag cases where ALL competing pages point to themselves. 7. **Structural quality baseline** — crawl all indexable pages and classify as healthy/broken/thin/duplicate. If >40 % of pages are broken (rendering failures, empty content divs, soft-404s, Lorem-ipsum), the drop is not pure authority — it is authority multiplied by structural decay. Fixing the structural baseline is then a recovery accelerator, not just hygiene.

Recovery plan (3 phases × 6–12 months)

Phase A — Authority foundation (months 1–2)

**What Google especially scrutinizes in Core Updates:**

• **Author authority** — Person behind the content, qualifications visible
• **Topical authority** — Site covers the topic in depth AND breadth, not just isolated pages
• **Trust signals** — About, Imprint, Reviews, Sources, Date stamps
• **Original insight** — Own data, own perspective rather than "I read elsewhere"

**Concrete steps:** 1. Rebuild every author page: photo, bio with qualifications, list of articles, social profiles (LinkedIn/X), `Person` schema 2. Edit each affected top URL: author visible (+schema), `dateModified`, sources with outbound links, update notes 3. Strengthen About/Imprint pages: team intro, company history, location, contact — mandatory trust signals 4. Sitewide: reviews/testimonials visible above the fold (manage on original platforms, NOT mirror sites)

Phase B — Topical authority hubs (months 2–4)

**Goal:** transform a collection of scattered pages into coherent topic hubs.

1. Identify main topics (3–7 for e-commerce, 5–15 for news/publishers) 2. Per topic: 1 pillar page (1500–3000 words