I will share experience, from the opposite side.
There was a site, filled with unique content. And then, hop, sanctions for something from Google, and eventually a site that stupidly copied the content (ordinary doorway), even with a crippled structure - went to the top instead of my on the "traffic request", pulling up the tails. Then the removal of sanctions through the support of Google, but a website published in the TOP. And the author quickly realized, brought the design, structure and text back to normal.
Conclusion: The stick sometimes shoots