Does Google lump good sites in with all the AI junk now?

[ByteMoo]

I'm new to SEO, so go easy. But I've worked as a senior software engineer for years, built search-friendly sites with clean, accessible HTML, and know the gap between mass-made filler and useful programmatic pages.

Still, Google wants no part of my site.

My Search Console chart for the past six months looks like this:

One brief spike, then flat again. I made a ton of changes months ago, hoping things would pick up. Nope.

Some context: the site has around 17k pages that rotate as events end. Old event pages get noindex. There's unique data and insight you can't find on other sites. The design works, navigation is clear, and the content goes deep.

Most pages do use affiliate links as the main CTA. Could that hurt?

The site isn't even meant to be just a directory. It's there to go with my mobile app. The directory is one part of it.

What gets me is how much worse directories can still rank. What do they have that I don't? Is Google so fed up with slop that sites like mine get caught in the mess?

Not here to plug anything. Just trying to work out why Google went so cold. Any ideas would help. Thanks.

 

[RankPup]

I think the issue here is less about your code and more about how Google sees the site. You've got loads of pages that come and go, affiliate links up front, and not much left for users once an event ends. Even with good text, that can look like thin content at scale.

Using noindex on old pages is fine, but each new batch of URLs has to earn trust again. Sites that keep their traffic tend to have better links, more trust from other sites, and a real reason for each page to exist beyond sending people somewhere else.