(Entry was posted by Miller Sockhill on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 10/24/2019).

My email was hacked, will it affect SEO?

Hi all. My email got hacked and I inadvertently sent thousands of spam emails to random email addresses. Obviously, I tightened my security the same day etc. but since then I have noticed a 50% drop in my visitors. My questions are:1. Does having email compromised affect SEO?; and if so 2. Will it bounce back with the passage of time?

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Travis Bailey: 1.) You probably lost a good chunk of your mail list. Have you been tracking your visitors over time? 2.) Do you know what channels have dropped? 3.)The site likely lost a proportionate amount of users subscribed to the mail list.
Miller Sockhill: Thanks Travis Bailey. It did not go to my mailing list, just from my email address. 50% were email addresses which no longer exist etc. Luckily :) Thank you for answering.
Travis Bailey: The thing that you need to be cognizant of is that they can unsubscribe, at any message.
Michael Martinez: Based only on what you describe, I doubt there is any connection between having email hacked and a decline in traffic. ADDED ON EDIT: Travis assumes you have a mailing list. I agree it`s possible the hack could have affected a mailing list`s response rate if it was hacked, too.
Miller Sockhill: Thanks Michael Martinez. I was just wondering if there was perhaps some blacklist, where my @debtrecoveryqld.com.au could have been flagged by Google. I didn`t think it was very likely, just checking. Thanks for your answer, much appreciated.
E Dieter Martin: mxtoolbox dot com/blacklists.aspx says you are in the clear
Jobin John: Miller Sockhill I would disagree with Michael, Google has a patent that would enable it to take metrics from its email services, most prominently Gmail, and use information gathered from its spam filters to improve its web search results.

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1...
Jobin John: Gsuite also falls in the same category.
Michelle Korn: Jobin John I got an error twice trying to go to that patent page. :(
Miller Sockhill: Ok, so about the same time, I added some schema to my website - article, local business and FAQ schema. Would adding schema affect my traffic by 50%? This sounds more likely.
Travis Bailey: It`s possible that poorly implemented schema markup can hit a site. What do ya got?
Miller Sockhill: Thanks Travis. Since then I spent the long weekend designing a brand new website. The old site was taking longer to load, and I wasn`t happy. The new current site does not have much schema. Hoping that a new clean site will help the search results.
Brenda Michelin: OH, it is a YMYL site. That puts you under more scrutiny with Google.
Michelle Korn: Brenda Michelin what`s a YMYL site?
Brenda Michelin: Your Money or Your Life

https://searchengineland.com/google-may-use-different...
Miller Sockhill: Brenda Michelin Thanks. I am a solicitor and committee members of law groups etc. In my author bio I link out to my solicitor registration and my profile pages in lawyer groups & associations etc. That should prove to Google that I am qualified to give the advice. My articles are very comprehensive, 2, 000 to 5, 000 words each (some 20, 000 words). I also link out to the case law and the legislation that I cite. I think I will do ok in YMYL queries. Thank you for your answer :)