My website traffic suddenly dropped 50%

A sudden 50% drop without any visible penalty almost always means one of three things. First, check Google Search Console immediately — look for any manual actions, coverage drops, or security issues. Even if you don't see a manual penalty, a core update could have hit you. Google's helpful content update or core algorithm updates can tank traffic overnight for sites they deem low-quality. Second, check your top-ranking pages — did any of them lose positions? Use Ahrefs or SEMrush to track ranking changes. Sometimes one or two key pages dropping causes massive traffic loss. Third, check if a competitor launched something big or if there's seasonal variation (recipe traffic does fluctuate). Also verify your analytics tracking code didn't break — I've seen people panic over traffic drops only to find a broken GA tag was the real issue. Finally, audit your content. If you've been publishing thin, AI-generated recipes, Google may have devalued them. Focus on original, detailed content with real photos and personal experience.