Did Your Website Take a Hit After Google's 'Spam Update'?

I’ve been working on a few new SEO projects over the last few months. I’ve been managing all three segments of the project—technical, on-page, and off-page. A few months in, Google launched its core update in November, which ultimately benefitted the website by bringing a significant hike in traffic by the end of the month. I continued following my strategy, but a few weeks later, Google released another core update, followed by the “Spam Update.” As a result, the website I had started working on a few months earlier took a severe hit, experiencing a dramatic traffic drop of more than 50%. This raised the need to investigate why the website had seen such a massive decline. Small, temporary fluctuations are acceptable, but a drop of over 50% was a significant concern for both me and the client. I began my investigation by reviewing the website's history dating back to 2019. I segmented my research based on several parameters, including: * Backlinks * Blog content * Traffic fluctuations I felt literally happy after going through the insights as my research really showed me the actual reason why the website has seen this much of traffic drop.  Here’s what I uncovered: * The client began SEO efforts in 2022. * By the end of that year, the website was generating approximately 13,000 monthly visitors with around 25,000 backlinks. * When Google rolled out its “Spam Update” near December, the website suffered its first significant hit, with traffic dropping by 4,000 to around 9,000 visitors per month. * From January to September, the website managed to stabilize at an average monthly traffic of about 8,500. * In October 2023, another “Spam Update” caused traffic to drop by another 4,000, bringing it down to approximately 5,000 visitors. * The “Spam Update” of 2024 dealt an even harsher blow, slashing traffic by 50%. From my analysis, it became clear that Google has been rolling out annual “Spam Updates” to filter out websites that don’t adhere to authentic practices for improving rankings. At one point, I suspected that irregular content publishing in the blog section was the reason for the traffic decline. However, I eventually realized that spam backlinks were the main culprit behind the hits triggered by the “Spam Updates.” Upon analyzing the website’s backlink profile, I discovered numerous poor-quality links and content generated on irrelevant topics unrelated to the website’s products. Shockingly, the client was entirely unaware of this, as it was a blunder caused by the previous agency they had hired. Once I identified the root cause, I began disavowing the spammy links through Google Search Console. Slowly but surely, the traffic started recovering and trending back toward its previous peak. The client was genuinely impressed with my research when I presented all these points supported by facts and data. I, too, found immense satisfaction in diving deep into the technical aspects to uncover the true cause of the issue. I’m pretty sure, many of the websites worldwide have experienced such drops. For those who witnessed it, did you get the actual reason for the traffic decline? And how you are overcoming. Please share your experience.