Ensure those unpublished URLs return a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status, not a 301 redirect to the homepage. A 410 tells Google explicitly: "Stop looking for this, it’s never coming back.
Add unique assets to those 4 posts—original diagrams, a short video summary, or specific case studies. Make it impossible for Google to say the web is "better off" without these pages.
Try moving one of your solid articles to a different path (e.g., /resources/article-name or /guides/article-name). If it indexes there but not in /blog, you know for a fact the subfolder has a temporary "manual or algorithmic dampener" on it.
Link to these 4 articles directly from your highest-authority pages (like the Homepage or main Service pages) within the body text. This passes "PageRank" and signals to Google that these aren't just sidebar additions, but core content.
Once a site "burns" its reputation with bulk AI spam, recovery can take 4–8 weeks. Google needs to see a consistent pattern of high-quality, non-spammy behavior before it lowers the barrier for your URLs again.
At TheSEOGuy, we have solved this for our multiple clients. DM us and we will send you more tried and tested methods worked for us.
