Google Drop Following Negative Article in New York Times

[PostAlmostAnything]

I have two sites that were mentioned in a negative article in The New York Times a couple weeks ago. They saw a good increase in traffic, but on the sixth both of them saw sudden unexplained Google drops. Both seemed on the average position from search console doubling overnight.

I run similar websites that have seen no such drops. The only thing these two have in common are being mentioned in the same negative article. Normally I would expect the mention from a major news outlet to make the sites more authoritative in Google's eyes.

Is this a coincidence or a possible manual penalty?

They still rank number one for their respected brand names, but everything else has suffered. Did Google make any recent algorithm changes or do you think someone at Google may have read the article and decided the sites needed to be demoted?

[PostAlmostAnything]

@blueprintmarketing it is usually best that these domains are not listed on forums like this one. It tends to take subjects off topic.

[BlueprintMarketing]

@postalmostanything
I would have to see the domains to be of help.
All the best,
Tom