Website Redesign and Migration to Squarespace killed my Ranking
-
My old website was dated, ugly, impossible to update and a mess between hard-coded pages and WP, but we were ranking #1 in the organic searches for our key words.
I just redesigned my website using Squarespace. I kept most of the same text on the pages (for key words) and kept the same Meta-Tags and Title Tags for each page as much as possible.
Once I was satisfied that I had done as much on-page optimization as I could, I changed the IP in our Domain Name Registry so that it would point to our new website on the Squarespace host. And our new website was live!
...Then I watched in dismay as our ranking fell into oblivion.
I think this might have something to do with not doing any 301 redirects from the old website and losing all of my link juice.
Is this the case? And, if so, how do I fix it?
Our website url is www.kanataskinclinic.ca
Thanks
-
Really sorry to hear the new site is still struggling, Nicolas. In some quick indexing tests, it certainly appears that your blog posts are being indexed, and I'm seeing them in the search results for the specific post titles. [See screenshot attached] It's possible this may have picked up in the 10 days since you posted this.
I'm assuming you submitted your site's xml sitemap to the correct www version of your Google Search Console? What does the sitemaps report indicate as far as the number of pages indexed compared the number submitted?
Certainly one of the tradeoffs of a site tool like Squarespace is that you have far less control of the code to implement technical SEO, but it shouldn't be so problematic that you lose rankings completely.
If you're interested, I'd be happy to share a short Skype chat to try to narrow down the issues. You can send me a private message through my account here at Moz.
Paul
-
Why thank you! Did some of that info help you out as well?
p.
-
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your detailed response. And sorry for the delay in my reply. I am currently focused on updating my knowledge on SEO as much as possible so that I can figure out what happened to our website ranking.
I have re-directed all the major pages on my website, and continue to redirect pages as I come across them, but there are fewer and fewer and I don't think they're very important.
I did discover some other troubling problems, though: I tried using the "view as text" feature of Google Cache to see how Google sees our site....And it looks terrible!
- There is a lot of duplicate content, including page titles, which is horrifying.
- Duplicate and even triplicate content arises where I used their carousels and sliders,
- The images do not have their original filenames, just some generic SquareSpace "static" name.
- There is little, if any alt text, and I'm not always sure where it comes from, as I didn't put it there.
To make matters worse, even though our website has been live for over a month, and I have submitted it to Google for indexing several times already, my blog posts still do not show up on Google. Even the ones that are featured on our home page. Even if you type their titles right into Google's search bar.
Ugh! It took me several months to build our new website, and I was very proud of the result. It looks beautiful. But, if it's that ugly to Google, I'm going to have to look for other options.
-
Paul, you rock!
-
Most welcome - happy to see another Canuck hereabouts My mom's just down the road from you in Arnprior.
If you were able to get the initial broken links review corrected within two weeks, that's great - not much of the authority should have dissipated.
However to note - the 404s in Search Console aren't the only ones that need to be fixed - they're just the ones Google has noticed and alerted you to so far. The problem with relying on GSC to tell you what to fix is that, by the time it has shown up in the Console, Google has already hit a 404 and been told it's a missing page. It's totally reactive, instead of proactive.
I'd strongly recommend you also use the other methods I mentioned to get more of the old URLs found & redirected as well before Google notices they're borked. It's also ideal if you can try to get the owners of the most valuable sites that linked to you in the past to update their links to point directly to the new pages. It's a bit of a battle, but even just a few updated can make a difference.
As far as how long until "link juice starts flowing" by which I assume you mean "rankings and traffic start to return" - the only real answer is "it depends", I'm afraid. You'll want to submit your new sitemap to GSC so that you can track the progress of the indexing of your new site's pages (on Squarespace, the URL to submit is www.kanataskinclinic.ca/sitemap.xml). You should also do this for Bing's Webmaster Tools.
Since URLs and content have changed, it's going to take some time for your site to fully re-index and for Google to understand the value of the new content. Could be from a few weeks to a month. It would also help to submit a few of the main section pages using the Fetch as Google tool in GSC and to get some new, strong incoming links to the site's pages. Good social links, and at least one or two new ones from relevant sites.
Lemme know if you have further ??s
Paul
-
Just to clarify, our new website was just launched two weeks ago. Hopefully, I haven't lost too much power from the old links?
-
Hi P.
Thank you so much for your informative reply.
I took your advice and went into my Google Search Console and checked for 404 errors. Google made it easy by listing all of the broken URLs. They even thoughtfully allowed me to download the list into a Google Doc so that I could keep track of my work as I fixed them.
I then went into my SquareSpace control panel and added 301 redirects for the broken pages. It was surprisingly easy to do, and they provided very clear, step-by-step instructions to help.
After doing this, I checked my Google Search Console to see if anything had changed. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the redirects were working immediately. Wow, fast!
Now that this problem is resolved, how soon does the link juice start flowing? In other words, how soon do you think it will affect our ranking?
-
And just to add - there is a shelf life on recovering all that page and link equity. The longer those old URLs 404, the more of the power of the old pages will erode away.
Two month is a long time - don't dally on getting those redirects started immediately.
P.
-
Regardless of the possible issues with the new design, yes, if you changed to new URLs on the new site and didn't implement correct 301-redirects from all the old URLs, you have essentially thrown away all the ranking authority and inbound links contributed by all of your old pages except the home page.
Since most homepages only rank for a small portion of the total number of terms for an established website, that's the primary cause of your immediate problem.
To fix it, you have some hard work ahead of you to capture as many of the old URLs as possible and write redirects to the new URLs. These old pages can be captured in a number of ways. The easiest initial method is to look up all the 404 errors in you Google Search Console, sort them by date, then start fixing all the ones after the date of the site change.
You can also use your Analytics data - create a report of all the page URLs of your site that received traffic in the year before the change, then sort them by highest traffic to prioritise where to start creating rewrites. You can also capture the current 404 errors in your Analytics data for high-priority pages to get redirected.
For a final more high tech solution, you can use Screaming Frog SEO Crawler to crawl the archive.org WayBack Machine version of your site to capture as many old URLs as possible.
Hope all that makes sense?
Paul
-
Not using 301s could be a big part of the problem. Do your old backlinks all point to existing pages on the new domain?
-
Hello,
According to Wayback machine, you've migrated your website after April,13.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160413071802/http://www.kanataskinclinic.ca/
We can see clearly that you have changed everything ! Design, photos... So you've changed the UX ! Text is important but Google takes user engagement into account, and if users are not reassured by your new design, you will never get back your positions ! In old design buttons are clearly identifiable, it's more simple to navigate, some menus are youseful like "Why choose us ?"... I think you'd better improve old design and navigation and forget the new one !
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking of non-homepage leads to decrease in website ranking?
Hi all, Google picks up a non-homepage to rank for primary keyword where homepage is actually optimised to rank for same keyword. This means Google is ignoring the actual page and ranking other page. Does this scenario means that we are ranking lower as the homepage is not considered here? We may rank much better if homepage is preferred by Google? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Google text-only vs rendered (index and ranking)
Hello, can someone please help answer a question about missing elements from Google's text-only cached version.
Web Design | | cpawsgo
When using JavaScript to display an element which is initially styled with display:none, does Google index (and most importantly properly rank) the elements contents? Using Google's "cache:" prefix followed by our pages url we can see the rendered cached page. The contents of the element in question are viewable and you can read the information inside. However, if you click the "Text-only version" link on the top-right of Google’s cached page, the element is missing and cannot be seen. The reason for this is because the element is initially styled with display:none and then JavaScript is used to display the text once some logic is applied. Doing a long-tail Google search for a few sentences from inside the element does find the page in the results, but I am not certain that is it being cached and ranked optimally... would updating the logic so that all the contents are not made visible by JavaScript improve our ranking or can we assume that since Google does return the page in its results that everything is proper? Thank you!0 -
Best Approach to Rank For Multiple Locations With Similar Targeted Keywords
I'm trying to determine the best way to set up a website to rank for a similar set of keyword phrases in three different cities. The keyword phrases I want to rank for are all pretty much the same with the only difference being the city associated with the keyword phrase. For example, "Austin water restoration" vs "San Antonio water restoration" vs "Houston water restoration". Each city needs about 7 or 8 pages of unique content to accurately target the group of keywords I'm trying to rank for. My initial thought was to write up unique content for each city and have each city act a site within the main site. For example, the main navigation for xyz.com/austin would be Austin specific, so when you land on xyz.com/austin and go to Services - Water Restoration, it would be all Austin specific content. The same would be true for San Antonio and Houston. The only problem with this approach is that I have to build up the page authority for a lot of different pages. It would be much easier to build up the page authority for one Water Restoration page and just insert a little "Areas we serve" on the page that includes "Austin, San Antonio, and Houston" and maybe work the coverage area in again at the bottom of the page somewhere. However, it would be much more difficult to work "Austin, San Antonio, and Houston" into the title tags and H1s though, and I couldn't logically work the cities into the content as much either. That would be a downside to this approach. Any thoughts on this? Wondering how large companies with hundreds of locations typically approach this? I'd really appreciate your input.
Web Design | | shaycw0 -
How do I move a 200+ website properly with 301 redirect?
I tried to search for the answer but didnt find any direct answers. I need to move a 200+ site to a wordpress site. How am I suppose to 301 redirect all of them? Do I need to create the new pages first then have webmaster use ssh and 301 the entire list? Can anyone link me to a 1,2,3 step instructions for a huge website move? Im sure there are other issues that I need to know about.
Web Design | | bryonstout0 -
Website spread over two domains - The Good,The Bad and the Ugly ?
Hi, I am wondering if the way I have set up our website site is creating more harm than good ? All our SEO efforts and content is located @ www.sparrowmakeup.com.au however our portfolio is located at www.make-up-artists.com.au. Questions ? Will Analytic bounce rates effect my SERP, as most people click on the portfolio link in the first 5-15 sec of landing on our page ?? Is there a better way of setting it up ? the reason I set it up like this in the first place was because we wanted a different look/theme for the portfolio. (using WP) Is there any other issues that this setup might have in the SEO / SERP department ?? Is there any benefits and how can I maximize on them (silver lining) Your help and experience is greatly appreciated. Regards Ed
Web Design | | EdsonGroupMedia0 -
3 Brands, 3 Services, 3 Different Websites Right?
My client was told that having 1 website for 3 different brands/services is better than having 3 websites. I need your help to prove my value to a new client. This client has worked with Reach Local on PPC for some time and when they first got started the Reach Local Markering Consultant told this cleint that they needed to have one site for better SEO purposes. The client was told that Google ranks websites higher if they have more paid traffic going to them. I've been doing this for long enough to realize this does not help ranking, at least not enough to make a difference. Keep in mind this is for 3 different companies. One company does plumbing, another electrical and the last one does air conditioning. They also have 4 locations but only two locations have mutliple services opperating out of them. I understand these 2 location will not have there own Google+ Local / Places listing. Using the same address for 2 different business and expecting a first page ranking is just not possible. Right now when you visit the clients website you see a logo that rotates with a banner section that follows the logo rotation. First you see the AC Company and then the Plumbing etc. I see this as confusing to the end user and it is more work to get it ranked for SEO. I recommended that we build 3 speerate websites for each service and just list out all the addresses that the company services on the contact page. I would also design inside the footer links to the other services for branding purposes. Please share your thoughts on how you would handle this if you were doing the SEO for your own 3 different business services. I really appreicate any input/insight to this. Thank you so much in advance!!!!
Web Design | | 1SMG0 -
Best Website Builder - Help Me Choose
I need to built a multi language site (to built a Pilates, Yoga site) and I will use a site builder. After posting questions on wix.com I came to the fact I should continue my research because there are not SEO friendly. Do you have a suggestions? Limited to html knowledge, using a website builder is my only option. Here are some of the features I need: Multilanguage Web Site Mobile version SEO Friendly Nice Template Selections( this is important) HTML customization Twitter, Facebook, Blog... I'm not looking at free website builder, when you want good features, there is a price to paid. Thank you for your help and suggestions, BigBlaze
Web Design | | BigBlaze2050 -
Need an SEO pro to build us a new fine art website
Hey Seomoz friends My friends and I started buying and selling art 5 years ago. We did it all on ebay. Two years ago I decided to try an attempt at building us a website to further our business outside of ebay. www.originalartbroker.com I used homestead.com software aka intuit to do this. I was able to get a lot of first page results in seo after a ton of work and willing to do a lot more. I'm sure the homestead site slowed my efforts down. I need more power 🙂 What we do. We sell fine art. We are trying to aspire to the leading seller of fine contemporary art online. We will do whatever it takes to get there. Our issue is not our product. Our issue is getting traffic to the site. I only have 175-200 visitors a day. I need better results for the keywords of our artists and inquires that surround them. We have a bounce rate of 70%, average time on site of 1 minute 50 seconds, and a slow loading site that is almost impossible to create individual pages for pieces (mgmt nightmare) Outside of our site we have blogs, squidoo pages, facebook account with 2500 fans, twitter page with 2k followers, youtube channel, and a blog on the site for new arrivals. We have a 200-250 piece on our site at any given time. We add probably ten pieces on average a week. We don't need any kind of ecommerce management software as most of our sales are done over the phone being that it is higher end art. I need a site that out performs my competition. I need to be in the top three when someone types in "leroy neiman" "peter max" and so on. I, with limited knowledge, need to be able to use the software everyday to upload new art as it comes in. I want every piece to have its own page so that I can also add pieces to a google merchant account. When I add new pieces under a certain artists and it creates its own page i want it to create h tags and an url extension for each product as I add them based off the discription and artists name. I would like some sort of blog integration to post our new arrivals as we get them. I would like some sort of customer capture. I am thinking something along the lines of them prociding email, name, and zip code to see the prices on the site. You are the seo pro so you know what it takes. I would like to know what a solution would cost to get us on the ground with more seo power. A site with speed that is easily indexed. It doesn't need to have a lot of bells and whistles. Please look at my site and let me know what you think. You can get an idea from that of what we are doing. Please give me an idea of what you can do and what it would cost. Thank you
Web Design | | forecastedinvestments0