The instinct is to check an update tracker, see a rollout in the same week, and blame Google. That is wrong roughly half the time, because deploys, CMS changes and template edits cluster around the same dates and nobody logged them. You need a test that distinguishes a site-wide ranking shift from a technical or content-specific one.
update-vs-self-inflicted.md
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name: update-vs-self-inflicted
description: Use when organic traffic drops and someone asks whether it was Google or something you shipped.
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# Separating Algorithm Updates From Your Own Changes
The instinct is to check an update tracker, see a rollout in the same week, and blame Google. That is wrong roughly half the time, because deploys, CMS changes and template edits cluster around the same dates and nobody logged them. You need a test that distinguishes a site-wide ranking shift from a technical or content-specific one.
## What you need first
- daily clicks and impressions by page group from Search Console
- a deploy or CMS change log covering the drop window
- a confirmed update timeline for reference
## Method
1. Split clicks from impressions immediately. Impressions flat but clicks down is a SERP layout or CTR change, not a ranking loss - do not start rewriting content.
2. Check whether the drop is gradual over 5-14 days or a cliff inside 48 hours. Core updates roll out slowly. Cliffs are almost always yours: a robots change, a noindex, a broken template, a CDN rule.
3. Segment by page type and by query intent. A genuine core update hits unevenly across topics. A technical fault hits one template uniformly regardless of topic.
4. Cross-reference the exact drop date against your deploy log before you look at any update tracker, so the tracker does not anchor you.
5. Check whether competitors moved. If your position held and clicks fell, Google added an AI overview or a feature block above you and no ranking work will recover it.
6. Write the conclusion as a falsifiable statement with the evidence that would overturn it, and annotate the date.
## What this produces
A dated written diagnosis naming the cause, the evidence for it, and what would disprove it.
## Where this goes wrong
- Comparing to the previous period when the previous period contained a seasonal peak, which manufactures a drop that never happened
- Treating an unconfirmed tracker spike as evidence - those trackers measure volatility, not causation, and they spike during your own migrations too
- Declaring recovery because one week rose, when the week you compared to contained a bank holiday
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From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/update-vs-self-inflicted
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A dated written diagnosis naming the cause, the evidence for it, and what would disprove it.