Recipe Site Case Study
Mini-audit → Backlink cleanup → 10x Link Building Bundle = Display ad revenue boost
The Problem
This high quality recipe site had been steadily growing in organic traffic for three years, until May 2024, when it took a significant traffic drop due to search algorithm updates. The site owner had been fighting back with fresh recipes, content updates, and E-EAT building, but the search clicks plateaued at around 70k clicks per month.
Adeptus SEO 3-Step Fix
Step 1: Mini-Audit
Our mini-audit revealed an excellent WordPress theme, hosting, Core Web Vitals, and content quality.
The real issues?
- 1k+ toxic backlinks were poisoning the domain
- High-volume recipe keywords stuck at page 1 bottom (ready to rocket to #1-3 with links)
Fix both → and set the stage for +97% traffic growth. Clean backlink profile + perfect link targets = restored traffic and growth.
Step 2: Backlink Audit
Our team conducted a thorough backlink audit and safely disavowed the offending links. We populated a disavow file with over 1,350 low-value, spam or toxic backlinks. Good riddance!
Step 3: Link Building Campaign
We reached out to hundreds of recipe and food-adjacent websites with our link building campaign, landing ten white-hat backlinks per month for six months.
Results
And six months later… check out this growth:
The website’s traffic from Google grew 97% from 78k to 153k 
The site ranks for 6,192 P1-P3 positions (up from 2,971 +108%) 
66%+ Website’s traffic is going to the three recipes that our links powered up
What our clients are saying about us
Proven Playbook
These are the same strategies that I used to scale drifted.com to 2M+ pageviews per month and earn over $1M+ in display ad revenue, before a successful multiple six-figure exit.
I’ve spoken with many publishers over the last year, and a lot of them are fed up with SEOs: expensive audits, regurgitated Google talking points, and no real results.
As a publisher myself, I get your challenges. This is practical, no-fluff help.
Even in 2026, with AI mode, AI overviews, and LLMs scraping content and harvesting clicks, our tactics still work. You can’t stand still and regain lost clicks, but you can reposition in the market and actually move the needle.
My promise to you
- These free mini-audits help fellow publishers fight back against AI mode, AI overviews, HCU and the LLMs, because ranking in 2026 Google isn’t easy.
- No WordPress tech debt lectures or SEO jargon. Just the quickest steps to traffic recovery and traffic growth for your site.
- No extra work on your part, all I need is your URL to get started.
When you work with Adeptus SEO, you’ll see we do things differently. We give you the tools to drive rapid growth, and because we’re transparent and performance‑driven, we need you to succeed so you’ll keep working with us month after month.