Migrated Domain, 90% Drop in Organic Traffic, HELP!!!!
-
One week ago we migrated our old domain www.nyc-officespace-leader.com to https://www.metro-manhattan.com/.
Our organic search traffic from Google has dropped about 90%. Is this normal? If so, how long should it take to recover?
We filed a submitted a domain change request on Webmaster tools one week ago. We are noticing that many of the www.nyc-officespace-leader.com pages are still indexed which seems strange after a week.
To complicate things, we filed a disavow file on April 9th for spammy links that pointed the NYC site. We filed the identical disavow of those links to the new Metro domain to ensure low quality links don't point to the new domain.
Prior to making the domain change request, we migrated 30-40 non critical pages from NYC to Metro domains. Webmaster Tools indicated that the traffic was normal on the migrated pages. We then migrated remaining pages and filed the domain change request on April 4th. It is after April 4th that traffic and ranking declined.
I would like to mention that there was no change in content; identical content was migrated from Metro to NYC
This does not seem normal. Research prior to the migration indicated that if proper steps were taken it should proceed with limited disruption in traffic and ranking.
Any ideas on how to remedy this situation?
Thanks, Alan
-
No this is ok. The old site will stay in the index for a few more weeks.
Can you identify if the missing traffic is all organic?
-
Hi Andrew:
I expected to take a hit, but I don't understand why the old domain remains indexed. Also, the extent of the drop in traffic. Is it abnormal that the old domain pages have not yet been removed 9 days after the move. Indexation for them dropped for a few days and then climbed. Is this a red flag for a fundamental problem? -
p.s. you've checked your google analytics installation?
-
Going HTTPS and a new domain name is quite a big change.
You will defiantly experience a drop in traffic but this should recover. But as you've changed domain names this could take 3 months.
A 90% drop is still big, but as your now averaging page 4 this is somewhat understandable.
-
Your average position used to be page 3. You're now averaging on page 4. This is part of the reason.
Have you lost a lot of referral traffic when you lost the backlinks.
Or is the traffic missing from organic?
Check analytics > acquisition > all traffic > channels
-
Exactly the same site.
Note that the only thing changes was the move to a new domain with an SSL certificate.
-
Is it basically the same site but with a different domain name?
i.e. all content / titles and meta descriptions the same?
-
Hi Andrew:
The redirects from all pages on the old URL redirect perfectly to the new domain. Any other ideas?
Thanks, Alan
-
Hello
Just to clarify this bit
"-Comprehensive redirects were done to the domain. Please see attached Search Console form for the permanent redirect. "
Is this the only redirect measure you have taken? (this is not sufficient)
You need to contact your domain name provider, online or on phone. Ask them to forward the old domain to the new domain.
If the new website structure is the same then all the URLs will connect up. Any that don't need redirects put in place done on the server of the new domain.
-
Hi Andrew:
Thanks for your response. Yes, something went terribly wrong!! Response to your questions:
-Comprehensive redirects were done to the domain. Please see attached Search Console form for the permanent redirect.
-The new domain is fully crawled.
-2 or 3 404s were detected. They are in the process of being fixed.
-As of April 10th, the average position of the old domain (NYC) was 28.2. As of April 10th average position of the new domain is 35.1.Real problem is the drop in clicks. New domain only got 5 or 6 yesterday. Normally, in March we would receive 80-90 visitors. Average position of the old domain in March was 26.8.
-I have attached several images showing the problem. One, labelled "Inconsistencies" shows some strange results. Indexation for the old domain dropped for a few days after the permanent redirect (301) but then climbed again. Seems very abnormal.
Another anomally: entering "site: www.metro-manhattan.com" does not bring up the URL in search results.
Any ideas or suggestions???????????????????
-
No this is not normal. Something is wrong.
Go into search console. Is your sitemap still running the old sitemap or has it been updated? Is the new domain fully crawled? If your site map is incorrect and 404ing this needs fixing.
Have you done comprehensive 301 redirects to the new domain? How many 404s do you have in search console? Have you used domain forwarding and resolved the urls at the new domain?
Also do you still have the search console with the old domain in it? Look at search analytics (in search traffic), what is your average position? compare to new domain - what is the average position for that. Have you had a big rankings drop? You must have, but this will show you the scale of the problem.
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
-
Domain authority a better metric then referring domain count?
Hi Guys, When reviewing competitors what would be a better metric - Referring domain count OR domain authority. From my understanding DA is a indication of the quality of the link profile. So if a site has a high DA this is a better metric for comparison then referring domain count. What are your thoughts on this? Cheers/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cathywix0 -
Domain transfer
Hi Everyone! I work for a company that had a new website built through a digital agency and that website went live 2 months ago. I have only been with the company for 2 months and find myself under the gun, because they are not coming up in organic search results that they used to. The old domain was 301'ed to point to the new domain. There were also 1 to 1 redirects set up to transfer the old page authority to the new, equivalent pages. In everyone's experience, how long does it take for a domain to start populating for search terms that it used to? I know there are mixed reviews on 301 transfers and how much of the old domain authority is preserved when you take this route. What is your experience? Just looking for some answers. Thanks in advance! John
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdvisGroup0 -
International Site Migration
Hi guys, In the process of launching internationally ecommerce site (Magento CMS) for two different countries (Australia and US). Then later on expand to other countries like the UK, Canada, etc. The plan is for each country will have its own sub-folder e.g. www.domain.com/us, www.domain.com.au/au, www.domain.com.au/uk A lot of the content between these English based countries are the same. E.g. same product descriptions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
So in order to prevent duplication, from what I’ve read we will need to add Hreflang tags to every single page on the site? So for: Australian pages: United States pages: Just wanted to make sure this is the correct strategy (will hreflang prevent duplicate content issues?) and anything else i should be considering? Thankyou, Chris0 -
Changing Domain
We have an old domain that we have had registered for many years(pinpoint;asersystems.com) and redirected to our regular domain (which is a short version of our name (pinlaser.com). Management wants to switch and use the longer version as the primary domain for branding purposes. I have cautioned against this for many reasons: Need to do 100's of redirects Potential loss of back links Most links will now be 301 redirects and not look natural to search engines. I would appreciate feedback on any and all risks associated with this potential move. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pinlaser0 -
Keyword Frequent On and Drop Off
Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am currently doing SEO for a client’s site, over the past few weeks the keywords have gradually gone up steadily. One of the keywords however continues to jump on and off rankings. For a few days it will jump up to 23<sup>rd</sup> in Google Rankings, but then it will completely drop of the radar, not even in the top 200 anymore. I’ve gone through the site to check if there is anything wrong and stuck to guidelines offered here on SEO Moz but I’m stumped to figure it out. The Keyword has a page that helps target it, there is no stuffing, all I can think is if there are bad back-links coming in to us that Google that continues to push down the rankings. Can anyone help shed some light on the situation for me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kal-SEO0 -
Domain expiration and seo
My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Duplicate Content Help
seomoz tool gives me back duplicate content on both these URL's http://www.mydomain.com/football-teams/ http://www.mydomain.com/football-teams/index.php I want to use http://www.mydomain.com/football-teams/ as this just look nice & clean. What would be best practice to fix this issue? Kind Regards Eddie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780