But it has only impacted sites in the health niche. There's a lot of really bad advice and information being circulated in this niche. The antivax insanity didn't just spring out of nothingness.
I run a site that covers musical equipment (I'm an amateur musician) and my rankings have been stable for over a year with almost zero work.
Search Engine Roundtable conducted a survey after the medic update, here are the
categories of websites that were affected: https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/google-medi... (Health accounted for the biggest percentage but there were many other verticals that were impacted as well.)
There has also been several core algorithm updates since then that have caused ranking drops and volatility across the board.
Again, the cynical response is, "for now". When they get past this stage where they're doing the most obvious thing that's probably more good than harmful, how long before they say that they're working with musical industry leaders, so they'll emphasize on what the labels say is good equipment.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I've seen some things on YouTube that point in that direction. Some random new creators have suddenly amassed millions of views and over a million subscribers with as few as 5 mediocre videos.
These creators have either found some way to game the YouTube algorithm, or they have been created by YouTube (or other media giants like Disney) and promoted heavily across organic channels in an attempt to create the kind of stars (that media companies can control) you see, say, on Disney Kids.
It's becoming clear to me that as we enter the fourth decade of the internet, the open, democratic nature of the internet is under siege.
I run a site that covers musical equipment (I'm an amateur musician) and my rankings have been stable for over a year with almost zero work.