Traffic dropped, and you have theories: a Google update, the redesign, a plugin, a competitor, AI Overviews. Most are wrong or only partly right, and acting on the wrong one costs months.

I reconstruct what happened, when, and where. I check whether the loss is impressions, ranking position, or click-through rate, because each has different causes and different fixes. I also rule out tracking artifacts first, since a broken GA4 setup or a Google reporting change can look like a real drop.

A timeline of your traffic curve annotated with confirmed Google updates, site deploys, and other events

A ranked list of explanations with evidence for and against each: algorithmic, technical, cannibalization, SERP changes, link loss, seasonality, tracking error, manual action

A verdict: what the data supports, what stays unresolved, and what extra data would settle it

Recovery priorities with expected time to effect, split into "fixes the cause" and "treats the symptom"

What this is not A diagnosis, not implementation. I don't offer retainers or ongoing optimization, and I can't guarantee recovery. Some drops can't be fully attributed with the access available, and I'll say so plainly rather than guess.