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Thanks Peter. Duplicate content was never an issue before this month. We're really stumped because most of the duplicate content even is years old. The content from last year is all new. But as you mentioned it could be that Google Finally Woke up. The same content btw was responsible for our 92 very highly trafficked KWs. I'll have our SEO team look at it. Sigh! hope it's just temporary. Thank you so much for taking time out for me. Really appreciate it.

Hi there What I would do is take advantage of a backlink audit and assess which links are toxic enough for removal or disavow. I would not redirect spamming backlinks to your homepage - try to remove these and if you hear nothing back, disavow them. The way I assess spammy links: Does this link help my website? Is this link relevant to my website? Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it? Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website? If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy? Are the links from directory templates? (example) Inspect URLs with blatant spam words Free Porn XXX Submit Directory Paid Links URL Sex etc. Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs This can usually show link farms or spam Pull your backlinks from a few different sources like OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs, and most importantly, Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools), as different tools pull different data. If you see spammy links, redirecting will potentially hurt your ranking. Be safe and take the proper steps listed above. Hope this helps! Good luck!