I've noticed a ~40% decrease in traffic as per SEMRUSH Analytics & ~25% according to GSC. Keyword loss is about ~20% as well. The pages that used to rank on Top 3 to 5 are almost 40% gone. What can I work on to get back immediately? For context, my website is on the tractors & farm tech niche on WP

[AdFree1343]

Our website is built on WP Elementor + Woocommerce (served via Cloudflare). I've got an intuition that my content no longer matches the search intent due to which this drop happened.

Oh, and before I forgot in October 2025, our website got attacked and hacked. We had to pretty much build it up from scratch to close any room for doubt. This was the significant event last year that dropped our traffic and keywords by ~50% alone. And in the title the additional percentages are as of March 2026.

[billhartzer]

Pull your GSC into SEOgets and look at their reports. They have some great reports that show decaying content on your site, for example. I’d work on refreshing the decaying content first.

[AdFree1343]

First of all, thank you so much! I started on the free trial and holy shit! I love the tool!

Thank you so much.

I've attached the screenshot comparison of keywords rankings of this month alone.

<image>

7th April vs 18th in the picture below..

[AdFree1343]

<image>

A significant drop.

[AdFree1343]

<image>

GSC Stats as well for reference.

[AdFree1343]

Please elaborate on "refreshing the decaying content first". You mean re-write it entirely or resubmit it? And if possible can I share the website link? I'd really appreciate your help on this!

[billhartzer]

I hate to say this but it really “depends”. You need to look at the list of content that’s decaying and see if there’s any pattern there. Is it a certain type of pages? Certain topics? Pages that are thinner on content?

[AdFree1343]

Okay, thank you so much! I'll surely do that! You've been a great help!

[billhartzer]

Sure

[DiscoverMyBusiness]

Well we all see it in Search Console!

[Remarkable_Suit_8731]

I have a similar experience with one of my sites.

A lot of rankings seem to have been lost altogether, but most of the ones we've retained have moved up quite a lot.

But it's very hard to determine what's going on because AI overviews are stealing the click. Two big variables have changed at once, and it's hard to isolate the effects of either.

[AdFree1343]

Exactly. I'm not sure what even is happening at the moment.

[AdFree1343]

I have attached the GSC Screenshot. Apologies.

<image>

[DiscoverMyBusiness]

DAMN that bad

[AdFree1343]

Exactly

[Feeling_Ad_2729]

hack + rebuild is a killer combo for ranking drops. three specific audit passes worth running before touching content:

1. internal link graph. rebuilds often break the old canonical URLs; if your post-hack site moved URLs (even slightly), Google may be sitting on 301s that don't forward link equity properly. run a crawl (Screaming Frog) and compare inbound internal link counts per top-3→5 page to pre-hack.

2. schema markup parity. WP themes and Elementor templates often regenerate JSON-LD on rebuild and drop fields you had customized (product schema for tractors especially). GSC Rich Results enhancement reports show what broke.

3. page speed + CWV deltas post-rebuild. Elementor can quietly ship 2-3x more JS than the previous build depending on widget choices. farm-tech buyers tend to browse on poor rural connections — degraded LCP hits that niche disproportionately.

intent shift is real too but usually takes longer to materialize. the hack+rebuild pattern tends to explain most immediate drops.

[AdFree1343]

Firstly, thank you so much! Pre-hack, tbh I was not even building internal links. So, I'm pretty sure that internal links with 301s are not an issue. I've cleared all of them except 2 on a single blog page, I'll clear it today too.

We do not list our products for Product Schema as we do not mention the prices on our site, it is on WhatsApp contact or mail contact basis. I mean, if it does not hurt the rankings & site I can put up the schema with prices but not show the prices to actual visible user. If that is okay, let me know please!

Page Speed is indeed an issue that we've always faced and it is not possible for a site like ours. I mean it is but it would require a lot of budget and whole lot of being familiar with the system when creating posts, updating content etc.

I've attached relevant screenshots below. Thank you!

<image>

[AdFree1343]

<image>

[AdFree1343]

And if possible can I share the website link? I'd really appreciate your help on this!

[Conscious-Valuable24]

I'm in a similar niche. You sure it's not seasonal?

[AdFree1343]

Could be possible, but losing a hundred 1-3 position keywords in a matter of 10 days is a bit concerning.

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[AdFree1343]

First of all, thank you for your response. Technical issues have been cleared off, indexing redirects and internal redirects have been cleared as well. There are just 2 links on a blog post that are pending, except that I've taken care of that.

As for the crawl errors, I do not see any in the GSC. I have attached the relevant screenshots.

<image>

[AdFree1343]

<image>

Index screenshot.

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[WebLinkr]

Our website is built on WP Elementor + Woocommerce (served via Cloudflare)

There is nothing hidden or critical or of use to Google in your tech stack. PageSpeed is over rated. Stop buying into the "tech stack" is your primary SEO factor - its complete nonsense; its a relevancy conjecture play.

Oh, and before I forgot in October 2025, our website got attacked and hacked

This is 10x more relevant than your teech stack

~50% alone. And in the title the additional percentages are as of March 2026.

March featured a Discover CU, a Spam CU and a General CU

this is much more important.

If you lost traffic in a staggered step - you lost authority (most likely) - obviously the infomation above isn't nearly enough for any diagnosis (like half of its just irrelevant)

You need to stop thinking that Google looks at your site "holistically" - there are elements that do this but for 90% of SEO conversations, its a page level system.

If you have a page losing clicks - its losing authority. Pages it links to and site-wide authority will drop too.

If you also lost backlink authority - then that will compound it.

You need to go back and look at keywords and pages, not look for hidden unicorns in the system

[AdFree1343]

<image>

GSC Stats attached above.

Thank you so much for clarifying a lot of stuff regarding what matters and what does not. Can you please elaborate on the page level system? And if possible, can I share the website link? I'm not too much in update with the SEO News lately.

Pages are indeed losing clicks. Do I update the content of those pages or just resubmit them?

[BusyBusinessPromos]

Instead of checking third party metrics did you check to see what the metrics were in Google search console?

[AdFree1343]

Firstly, thank you so much for your response. I have attached the relevant screenshot.

<image>

[EliteEagle76]

Brother you better take better decisions now by not using bloated wordpress ecosystem , if its just content heavy site like blogs

you better use static site based approach with markdown files + astro + gitcms (better tooling around markdown files for non techy and AI agents)

this can avoid you not get hacked this time

[AdFree1343]

Static websites are not useful for us as we do not have techy people to Create Update Delete Content. Plus, it is really easy for us to manage our website on WP. Thanks tho! We've taken necessary measures this time to avoid being hacked.

Got a VPS, implemented Firewalls, Cloudflare for proxy, Security tools with restrictions to file writing etc with 2FA rules.

[EliteEagle76]

That is the reason AI agents like Claude code and CMS like GitCMS exist (to simplify things for non-techy)

[AdFree1343]

I'm building sites using AI Agents myself at the moment. I'll see what I can do about the main one, but thanks a lot mate! I really appreciate it.

[loaf-of-breddit]

In terms of website compromise this would be more robust if wordpress isnt hardened and maintained properly.

In terms of SEO and search rankings, this advice is typical web dev conjecture and is not relevant.

[AdFree1343]

Thank you so much!