One of the main Google updates during this period was called the Helpful Content update, which adjusted search rankings for sites that had content that appeared to be more focused on improving SEO, than on writing content for users. I think this may have affected our site (though there’s no significant evidence of drops in rankings for our main keywords).
Regardless of whether it did or not - here is a Google explainer about creating helpful content. This may be especially useful for the editorial committee as input for future articles.
