John Mueller says recovery from an algorithmic ranking drop can take months

Search Engine Journal reported on 3 September that Google's John Mueller answered a Reddit thread from a site owner who saw their organic rankings fall sharply within two weeks of filing a link disavow, and had also had their Google Business Profile suspended. Mueller's answer set expectations that a full recovery, even after the true cause is found and fixed, can take many months.

What the site owner had done

The person asking the question had reviewed their backlinks, marked over 800 as toxic, and filed a link disavow. Their organic rankings then dropped within two weeks. They also could not get their Google Business Profile unsuspended, and a fresh profile they created was suspended too. They asked whether the disavow caused the ranking loss and how to recover as quickly as possible.

What Mueller told them

Mueller said the disavow tool is useful in some cases, but that disavowing a small number of links is not enough to drop a site out of search. He suggested reducing the disavow file to what the owner actually needs, and looking for another cause.

He then pointed to algorithm updates. "For example, there was a broader spam update which might have happened at around that time (I don't recall the actual date, and you don't mention a date in your post). If it's the case that it aligns with the spam update, to set expectations, fixing issues around bigger algorithmic changes can take quite some time, sometimes many months, until you see the effects."

He also raised a second class of cause worth ruling out: broad technical mistakes, of the kind that block a site rather than misconfigure a canonical.

How slow the disavow itself is

Search Engine Journal added a second Mueller quote from a separate discussion, on how long disavow files take to have any effect. Mueller said Google reprocesses affected links incrementally, and that he would expect the effect to show up "over the course of, I don't know, maybe three, four, five, six months, kind of step by step going in that direction." A ranking drop a few days after filing a disavow is not the disavow doing its work.

A quote to put in the recovery plan

Two things are useful here. The first is a public statement to refer to: if the team's site was affected by a confirmed algorithmic update, weeks with no change after the fix are not evidence the fix failed, and a status update to stakeholders can now say so with a named source. The second is a caution before touching the disavow file. Its effects arrive on a monthly timescale and cannot be undone quickly, so a large disavow filed in a hurry is a decision that will affect the team for the next quarter.

Neither of these is new SEO theory, but the fact that Google's search relations lead said it in public this week means the team can quote it in a plan with confidence.

Source

• Google Says Ranking Recovery Takes Months After SEO Issues Are Fixed, Search Engine Journal by Roger Montti, 3 September 2026