Huge organic traffic drom after a perfect domain migration. What to do?
-
Hi,
I already asked the question on different places. But so far nobody could help me.
Hope someone can help me out. If possible.
I migrated my website https://vihara.nl to https://meditatieinstituut.nl and lost about 80% traffic (see printscreens). It's over more than a month ago now and there is no sign of getting it back up.Maybe there is nothing to do and
1. I have to be patient and traffic comes back in a few months.
or
2. There is nothing to do and I've lost everything I've build up in the last years. Start over again to get the rankings back.
or maybe, maybe
3. I just forgot something that I still need to do to get the rankings back up. Or there is something I did not think of...This is done:
- The website is migrated 1 on 1. No changes in content, url, code, etc. Everything is exactly the same as on the previous domain.
- 301 redirects whole domain (via htaccess a bulk redirect). All the old pages, without exceptions, lead to the exact new page.
- The new domain is running from CDN (Cloudflare) with the same settings as the previous domain.
- SSL is installed in the exact same way.
- Domain migration set up in Search console (working).
- Uploaded new sitemap (working).
- Updated internal links.
- Changed the most important external links (where I could get contact after reaching out)
- In meanwhile received some new external links and also posted new content
Anybody knows what to do? Or do I just have to be more patient and will it come back in a few months by itself?
Looking forward to suggetions.
Thanks!
Gerjan
Migratie-Meditatie-Instituut-2048x786.jpg verloop-sinds-de-start-2048x355.jpg
-
Hi Dennis
yes I was able to see everything inside Search Console’s It look to me like everything has been correctly. I am honestly kind of stumped as to why the 301ed domain shows more index links. The only thing I can think of is that the site map was submitted to Search Console and that the search and replace was recently done so those URLs were still on your hosted site.
Google will take up to 4 to 5 months make the move.it should be much quicker after you’ve done the search and replace on the URLs.
I would also upload the old XML site map to your new website & submit it to your Google Search Console.
I am happy to take a look at your Hosting Infrastructure and see if something is awry there I cannot find anything using quite a few different tool sets and looking at your Google Search Console. It seems to me that this should’ve been done much faster by Google.
I will bring it up to Googles John Mueller in a Twitter talk I am going to have with him next week.
all the best,
Tom
-
Thank you Thomas, I removed you and added you again. Did you receive the invite?
-
I **would still upload the old sitemap to the new domains website. **
can I ask you send me the search console Invite again?
** I can’t seem to find it & can’t get into GSC**
** TZickell@blueprintmarketing.com**
**you want a page to page 301 & you shoul only uSE on index if needed **
“the noindex rules in the pages are gone, since they are redirecting to the new domain. So maybe I need to delete the sitemap in the old domain? On the other hand, since al the pages are redirected and I also filled in the migration form in Search Console, it should not be a problem the sitemap is still there right?”See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033088?hl=en
- Sitemaps: Submit the two sitemaps you saved earlier from the mapping. Initially, the sitemap containing the new URLs would have zero pages indexed, while the sitemap of the old URLs would have many pages indexed. Over time the number of pages indexed from the old URLs sitemap would drop to zero with a corresponding increase of indexing of the new URLs.
I posted the translated URL
t_he URL_
https://meditatieinstituut.nl/domein-migratie-vihara-nl-naar-meditatieinstituut-nl/
Domain migration meditationinstitute.nl to meditationinstitute.nl
April 16, 2020 we have moved our entire website meditatieinstituut.nl to this domain, meditatieinstituut.nl.What have we done?
The website has been transferred one to one. No changes in content, url, technology, etc. Everything has remained the same.
301 redirects total domain (via htaccess bulk redirect). All old pages, without exceptions, end up on the exact same page.
The new domain runs from CDN (Cloudflare) with the same settings.
SSL is installed exactly the same way.
Domain migration in Search console set correctly.
New sitemap uploaded (and working).
Internal links updated.
The most important external links that I have influenced or have adjusted.
In the meantime already received some new external links and made some new content.The sad result in organic traffic, so far:
We dropped from nearly 300 visitors in one day to about 40 visitors.
And we had such a nice line since the beginning:
Now Google says in "Search Console Help" that you get a notification in Search Console for 180 days that your domain is being transferred. This may also indicate that it may take 180 days for all authority to continue. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9370220?hl=en
“If critical pre-checks pass, all sites being migrated from or to will display a notification in Search Console that the move is in progress. You will see these notifications for 180 days. ”
The sequel
We hope to be able to quickly show a new print screen in which the traffic is back to the old level, from there a new upward trend.Since Google also indicated a long time ago that with a 301 redirect, 100% of the authority is now being forwarded, it is plausible that the entire authority will eventually also be forwarded.
If you notice something that we have forgotten in the migration process, or if you know something that could speed up the passing on of authority, please let us know!”
-
PS. I also resumed Cloudflare for the domain. Since it did not have any influence and it was paused about 2 weeks ago now.
-
Hi Thomas, just gave you access to GSC and sent you the mail below:It is really strange Google indexed even more of the old url’s. Really sharp from you, you noticed this. I did not see that myself.I was thinking, maybe this is because of the old domain in Search Console still contains the sitemap with al the url’s.But the noindex rules in the pages are gone, since they are redirecting to the new domain.So maybe I need to delete the sitemap in the old domain?On the other hand, since al the pages are redirected and I also filled in the migration form in Search Console, it should not be a problem the sitemap is still there right? This should make Google clear which pages are migrated so it can sent all the authority to the new domain and individual pages, right?I just gave you access to the Search Console for both the domain vihara.nl and meditatieinstituut.nl.Would be great if we can find an issue. But sadly I think everything is done right but it’s in the hands of Google now, and hopefully it will be better within the 180 days…On this page I've added some information about the migration progress. So when there are changes I will add this to this page. It's in Dutch but you can translate this.Thanks again for thinking with me.Gerjan
-
Hi Dennis,
thank you so much I really appreciate you giving me access to your search console I will give you an update in a couple of hours if that works?
I am starting to believe that it could be an HT Access file issue that should be the correct one for migrating domains
I can see you're now using cloud flare to redirect all of the possible domains I would recommend turning your back on for the main domain as well. You are correctly redirecting all your domains I checked with https://httpstatus.io/ you can see the results in the image below.
Large image https://i.imgur.com/6soPAEN.jpg
RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldsite.com [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.oldsite.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newsite.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^vihara.nl [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.vihara.nl [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://meditatieinstituut.nl/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
citing https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-redirects/
we can definitely push any of the old sites over with Cloudflare redirection system that I know works every time. I can tell from clicking on your URLs inside Google that they are redirecting but what's strange is that they have increased in the amount of URLs indexed since I last looked. Please look at my answer below or at this photo https://i.imgur.com/UZqSfHh.png
I will update you in 2 to 3 hours max giving you information on what I can figure out is doing this. I would recommend locking everything down with cloud flare even if you have had an issue with one of their IP's I'm sure will be gone by the time you turn it back on this way the HTTPS and www.
http://vihara.nl
https://vihara.nl
http://www.vihara.nl
https://www.vihara.nlthey must match
http://meditatieinstituut.nl
https://meditatieinstituut.nl
http://www.meditatieinstituut.nl
https://www.meditatieinstituut.nlessentially the four domains will all line up.
Because when I drop site:https://meditatieinstituut.nl" into Google I still get exactly 440 indexed URLs and the other domain has increased over 100 URLs in Google's index https://i.imgur.com/kdbrq7q.png
I look forward to updating you and I will look for your email.
Sincerely,
Tom
-
Hi Dennis,
I apologize it's taken me so long to get back to you
"Are you sure this is needed? The old sitemap contains the same url's, since the url's did not change. So I think it's not needed right?"
** I believe it is wise to put your old domains site map with your new domain because technically the URL did change because the domain changed**
"temporary paused Cloudflare"
** Thank you for explaining that you temporarily caused CloudFlare that makes a lot more sense to be frank with you I doubt that CloudFlare will hurt your site in any way shape or form even if it had a blacklisted IP address it's a reverse proxy so all the IP's are constantly changing. It might be that somebody did something negative with one of the four IP addresses that it signs to your website and I'm certain that CloudFlare would clean it up pretty quickly however it never hurts to remove another piece of technology and see if it's causing the problem.**
Yes, this is a little disturbing. I would expect that vihara.nl shouldn't be indexed anymore. The rankings are gone, but most pages are still indexed.
** It is an extremely clear sign that the site is not redirecting properly. They should no longer be in Google's index or Google should be made aware of this domain change one more time if you can do that?**
site:vihara.nl
** Bigger photo https://i.imgur.com/UZqSfHh.png**
It only contains these rules, to redirect every single page while only changing the domain:
#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://meditatieinstituut.nl/$1 [R=301,L]** I believe that the issue with the redirects may come from the www. or www. still not redirecting. From what I can tell the HT Access file should be when I have placed in below you can check it here. https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-redirects/**
RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^vihara.nl [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.vihara.nl [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://_meditatieinstituut_.nl/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
_"Vimexx.nl > I don't think it's the best but it's quit good. It's the same as the previous site vihara.nl, so I expect it doesn't make it worse than it should be." _ **It does not have to be the best most expensive hosting just a quality web host. They are worth quite a bit when it comes to troubleshooting and configuration. In my experience maybe look for another one around the same price that it has better reviews? I apologize I don't know what "Vimexx.nl is referring to another domain that you own?**
Yes, I did a find and replace for vihara.nl to meditatieinstituut.nl. So even the images and everything are changed to the new domain.
Nice work that is very important.
** I think there is something missing that we are not able to put our fingers on I apologize I did not see this earlier and have not seen your search console or been able to index the domain. I will do that in the next couple of hours.**
**respectfully,** **Tom**
-
Thanks EGOL!
-
- Your current robots.txt file does not contain your new or old site map I found your new site map but I cannot find your old site map.
Are you sure this is needed? The old sitemap contains the same url's, since the url's did not change. So I think it's not needed right?
in addition, you are currently not using Cloudflare for using Apache which shows me the site is clearly not going through Cloudflare
I temporary paused Cloudflare to see if this might have a positive effect. Because I've read somewhere you can be on a Cloudflare IP that is blacklisted because some other site on the same IP did some blackhat work. But I think the change is very little and it's already a week ago and I don't see any effect after pausing it.
drop this into Google "site:https://meditatieinstituut.nl" 440 indexed URL
drop this into Google "site:https://vihara.nl" 406 indexed URLsYes, this is a little disturbing. I would expect that vihara.nl shouldn't be indexed anymore. The rankings are gone, but most pages are still indexed.
I would like to see your HTAccess code
It only contains these rules, to redirect every single page while only changing the domain:
#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://meditatieinstituut.nl/$1 [R=301,L]I would like to know if you are working with a good hosting company
Vimexx.nl > I don't think it's the best but it's quit good. It's the same as the previous site vihara.nl, so I expect it doesn't make it worse than it should be.
as well as what you used to do a search and replace of your URLs?
Yes, I did a find and replace for vihara.nl to meditatieinstituut.nl. So even the images and everything are changed to the new domain.
you should also get your backlinks updated
Yes, I have done this with the most important links pointing to vihara.nl. Many of them are updated now. Some I did not receive a reply.
So thank you for your great reply! I'm really happy you took the time to lookup all the things that could help. Unfortunate I don't think there is something that can make a big change.
I hope that when vihara.nl gets less indexed, the authority goes to meditatieinstituut.nl. I really think it is somehow an authority problem. Everything seemed to be redirected and migrated instead of the authority, somehow... -
Thank you soo much Thomas. I just now see your reply (somehow I saw the notification my question was unanswered, while it wasn't.
I will check al your recommendations and come back to this. Also I will give you access to the search console. Will sent you a DM after I checked your suggestions.
-
Wow! Tom, that was a very generous and expert response.
Nice work!
-
I apologize I just spent approximately 60 minutes plus writing this out looking at the issues you have in my laptop was unplugged the battery died and I'm back to square one. What I will tell you is I can help me with this need to give me access to search console and allow crawlers your site.
Your current robots.txt file does not contain your new or old site map I found your new site map but I cannot find your old site map check it for a bad bite order mark or BOM
- https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/best-practice/common-robots-txt-mistakes/
- https://www.distilled.net/resources/free-web-based-robotstxt-parser/
- https://opensource.googleblog.com/2019/07/googles-robotstxt-parser-is-now-open.html
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php## top site map should be old XML vihara
Sitemap: https://meditatieinstituut.nl/vihara-sitemap_index.xml
Sitemap: https://meditatieinstituut.nl/sitemap_index.xmlin addition, you are currently not using Cloudflare for using Apache which shows me the site is clearly not going through Cloudflare a reverse proxy which modifies the headers they would've been rewritten like this https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170986-How-does-Cloudflare-handle-HTTP-Request-headers-
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 21 May 2020 12:25:15 GMT
Server: Apache/2
Vary: Accept-Encoding,Cookie,User-Agent
Upgrade: h2,h2c
Connection: Upgrade
Last-Modified: Thu, 21 May 2020 11:33:56 GMT
Accept-Ranges: none
Cache-Control: max-age=521, public, public
Expires: Thu, 21 May 2020 12:33:56 GMT
Referrer-Policy:
X-Pingback: https://meditatieinstituut.nl/xmlrpc.php
X-Powered-By: W3 Total Cache/0.13.3
Pragma: public
Content-Length: 137745
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
- http://bseo.dev/WXRAtI
- http://bseo.dev/cM1gCX
- http://bseo.dev/iOr2qC
- http://bseo.dev/8XLDtp
- drop this into Google "site:https://meditatieinstituut.nl" 440 indexed URLs
- drop this into Google "site:https://vihara.nl" 406 indexed URLs
in addition, if you would like to set up the old domain to redirect to the new domain and none of the URLs or change just follow these simple instructions it will work like a one-to-one match I would like to see your HTAccess code
https://medium.com/@natterstefan/redirecting-one-domain-to-another-with-cloudflare-66bd1c88bfae
I would like to know if you are working with a good hosting company as well as what you used to do a search and replace of your URLs?
Check your URLs using WP CLI or better search and replace better yet do a complete check on both sides the migration could've happened perfectly using WP Migrate DB Pro because it now migrates themes images and files it is an expensive tool the best in the industry at what you're doing
https://deliciousbrains.com/wp-migrate-db-pro/
if you would be kind enough to send me screenshots of the configuration of your website or if you just want to speak with me click on my photo and give me a ring I am more than happy to tell you a lot more than I have time to write down for the second time here. I'm sorry that this is a very compact version of what I want to talk to about but it took me a long time to write out everything the first time and then of the power failed.
please look at URLs to them are PDFs to them are CSV's I would like to import your site into Pantheon, servebolt, Pagely or if you're looking to spend under $30 a month https://pressidium.com/
you should also get your backlinks updated with an outreach tool called https://pitchbox.com it is superb for link outreach and would help you site migrations.
sincerely,
Thomas
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 Migration Hell!
5 weeks ago we migrated our site to a new domain. We also installed an SSL certificate on the new domain. The new domain was purchased 5 years ago but we only used it as a redirect address. It was more consistent with our brand so we decided to migrate to it. Great care was taken setting up page to page redirects. A formal domain change request was made to Google. In fact the move was implemented with only a handful of broken links on a 500 page site. Those links were quickly fixed. Our traffic declined from about 350 visitors a week to as low as 40 visitors the first full week after the move. Now the number of organic Google visits is up to 80, a drop of 75% !!! All except 20 (out of 500) pages are reindexed on Google Search Console. MOZ domain authority for the new domain has climbed from 5 to about 12. The old domain had a DA of 23. In Google Search Console hundreds of "URL Not Allowed" errors are the site map for our previous domain that redirects to our new domain. Attached please see image of this. The site map for the new domain appears normal, but about 160 pages are indexed that are not in the sitemap. I wonder if these two issues have somehow contributed to the drop in ranking. I have included images showing GCT for the 2 domains. I posted on MOZ a month ago and was told it just might take time. No improvement and now I am wonder if there is not some issue with the sitemaps causing havoc. Are traffic is down more than 80%. This does not seem normal. Any advice? Any suggestions as to how to expedite recovery? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
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 -
Migrating 1 page to https
Hi there, Although we do plan to migrate our entire site to https, we currently have only one page on our site which we want to migrate to https, as it has passwords and wotnot on it. Lets say it is httpS://www.example.com/login/ I am not really sure how to go about migrating just one page though.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unirmk
I am guessing that we need to: make sure that httpS://www.example.com/login/ is the only page that exists on httpS:// replace any link to the httpS://www.example.com/login/ version on the http:// version remove httpS://www.example.com/login/ from the http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml create a httpS://www.example.com/sitemap.xml on httpS:// which only references the one page (httpS://www.example.com/login/) 301 http://www.example.com/login/ to https://www.example.com/login/ submit both sitemaps to Google so they know whats up. fetch http://www.example.com/login/ so that google finds the redirect. Anything else?? :S Not too sure about this one. Many thanks for your help.0 -
Dramatic drop in Domain Authority
I have a client who has reported a drop in Domain Authority from 16 to 1 in a matter of a few weeks. Also, MOZ was reporting links, but now none! I know there were some issues with the recent MOZ index update. However, this sounds like something else. Anyone got ideas on where we should start looking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Traffic impact from switching hosting.
Good Afternoon! Does anybody know what sort of impact I can expect to see from switching hosting? Not only that but how long it takes to come back from that sort of thing? Our website has steadily been dropping since I took it over about a month ago. I have been slowly, tediously trying to prune the bad stuff, and one of our issues is with out host. Any thoughts would be great! Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
What is best practice SEO approach to re structuring a website with multiple domains and associated search engine rankings for each domain?
Hello Mozzers, I'm trying to improve and establish rankings for my website which has never really been optimised. I've inherited what seems to be a mess and have a challenge for you! The website currently has 3 different www domains all pointing to the one website, two are .com domains and one is a .com.au - the business is located in Australia and the website is primarily targeting Australian traffic. In addition to this there are a number of other non www domains for the same addresses pointing to the website in the CMS which is Adobe Business Catalyst. When I check Google each of the www domains for the website has the following number of pages indexed: www.Domain1,com 5,190 pages
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JimmyFlorida
www.Domain2.com 1,520 pages
www,Domain3.com.au 149 pages What is best practice approach from an SEO perspective to re organising this current domain structure? 1. Do I need to use the .com.au as the primary domain given that we are in this market and targeting traffic here? Thats what I have been advised and it seems to be backed up by what I have read here. 2. Do we re direct all domains to the primary .com.au domain? This is easily done in the Adobe Business Catalyst CMS however is this the same as a 301 redirect which is the best approach from an SEO perspective? 3. How do we consolidate all of the current separate domain rankings for the 3 different domains into the one domain rankings within Google to ensure improved rankings and a best practice approach? The website is currently receiving very little organic search traffic so if its simpler and faster to start again fresh rather than go through a complicated migration or re structure and you have a suggestion here please feel free to let me know your ideas! Thank you!0 -
301 redirect from one domain to other domain, How To?
Hi, I need to redirect 150 products pages from http://www.filtrationmontreal.com/ to http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/ How can I do this? Is there a tool or anything I can do to do 301 from one domain to another one? Can I use Google Webmaster Tool? Thank you, BigBlaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
Redirect gateway domain to main domain?
We have following scenario: Our main website - www.esedirect.co.uk which gets a 1800 visits a day with around half of those from organic search. It's been around since 2004. Our original website - www.ese.co.uk which gets around 30 visits a day and really is nothing more than a doorway page with links to the above site and couple of other sites that belong to the same company. This is an old domain that's had content since 1997 and has good domain authority with some good links. We are considering doing a 301 redirect from www.ese.co.co.uk to www.esedirect.co.uk to redirect the link juice. I welcome opinions to any possible negative effects this could give and how beneficial doing this will be. Thanks, Lee
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ese0