GSC Diagnostic Decision Tree

5-minute audit. Five questions. One verdict.

Question 1

GSC Performance: clicks down >15% week-over-week (May 1-7 vs Apr 24-30)?

✅ Yes → Continue to Q2

❌ No → You're probably untouched. Skip to "How to Track Yourself" in the main article and set up monitoring.

Question 2

GSC Coverage: "Crawled — currently not indexed" count delta vs May 1?

✅ Up by ≥10% → Strong indicator. Continue.

⚠️ Up by 1-9% → Possible indicator. Continue.

❌ Stable or down → Drop probably not indexing-related. Continue to Q3 anyway.

Question 3

Top 10 queries by clicks: any swap between May 1 and May 8?

✅ Yes, queries you ranked for now show different URLs → Soft confirmation.

❌ Same queries, just lower CTR → Different problem (likely AI Overview, not algo).

Question 4

Position tracker: median position movement on tracked keywords?

✅ Median dropped 5+ spots on >25% of keywords → Strong confirmation.

⚠️ Median dropped 2-4 spots on 10-25% → Moderate confirmation.

❌ Median stable → Either you're untouched or impact is concentrated.

Question 5

Pages with redirects in GSC: spike since May 1?

✅ Yes → Run a redirect chain audit immediately. Algo updates expose pre-existing redirect issues.

❌ No → Move on.

Verdict

3+ "✅ Yes" → You're hit. Run the 8-step recovery playbook. Do nothing else for 14 days after that.

1-2 "✅ Yes" → You're partially hit or data is ambiguous. Run playbook on AFFECTED pages only. Watch the rest.

0 "✅ Yes" → You're not hit. Bookmark this page for next time and go back to your work.