They can't prove the penalty because they never snapshotted

They can't prove the penalty because they never snapshotted

Word is a brand got hit, lost 40% of traffic, and had zero historical link export to compare against — so they couldn't tell which links arrived right before the drop. Flying the recovery blind because nobody kept a baseline.

The mistake is treating your link profile as a live number instead of a dated record.

What the forensics-ready operators do —
— Export a full RD and anchor snapshot monthly and archive it. When something moves, you diff against history instead of guessing.
— Tag the date a buy or campaign went live. Correlation against the algo-update timeline is half of any recovery.

Multiple recoveries stall not on the fix but on the diagnosis — no past, no pattern. Your link profile is evidence. Keep the chain of custody. Watch this space.