Does Switching Web Hosts Hurt SEO?
-
A few months ago, my site was shut down by BlueHost because of performance issues, so I moved it to WP Engine, and cleaned up most of the plug-ins. Since then, my search engine traffic has decreased over 50%. Does switching web hosts hurt SEO?
Thanks!
-
Yea, losing the redirects can definitely cause ranking and SEO problems. This can happen if the contents of the old site's .htaccess file didn't' get updated into the new site, or if using the WordPress Redirection plugin, the plugin somehow got deactivated or its redirects messed up.
Get those crawl errors fixed, then give the SEs some time to recrawl and see if most of the problem goes away.
By the way - nice looking site!
Paul
PS Marking whichever answer you found most helpful will help out other users and gives a bit of a points boost as well
-
Thanks again. Most of the crawl errors are 404. I think I had redirects on the old host that didn't transfer over. We're working on fixing those now.
I'm pretty sure I have Google Analytics on my 404 page - I have the Thesis template for Wordpress and have the Analytics set to load on every page.
-
Yea, the combination of a lot of crawl errors and the reduction in KB downloaded seem to indicate the SEs are having trouble indexing your site. especially if the crawl errors are 404s. The SEs will want to drop those pages from their index thinking they no longer exist, which will cost you the traffic.
What's the major category of crawl errors you're seeing? And do you have your Google Analytics code installed on your 404 page? (if not, you should).
Paul
-
Thanks Paul! The site traffic dropped the day of the move.
Google traffic dropped 31% and Bing traffic dropped 18%.
I just checked crawl errors and WOW! There are a lot. Could that be causing the problems? I also noticed that the kilobytes downloaded per day have decreased a lot since the move.
Thanks again.
-
As long as nothing's changed in terms of site structure/URLs and auxiliary files, changing servers shouldn't have any effect on SEO, Jodi.
First thing to make certain is that your auxiliary files (.htaccess, Robots.txt, and xml sitemap) are the same as on the old site. I've seen many instances where new default versions were applied on the new server, causing problems. Make sure your xml sitemap is in place, is complete and is updating correctly.
If your old .htaccess file had customized redirects in it, those may not have been transferred to the new server. (This would have been a manual process - needing to be done by whoever performed the migration.)
You can also pop into Google Webmaster Tools and make sure it's not showing any unexpected crawling errors or increased 404s. Also check that the crawl rate seems to be about the same as it was before the move.
Did you see the traffic drop exactly at the time of the server move? Or did happen gradually over a couple of weeks? Or did you see it drop quickly, but not right at the move date? I ask because it's necessary to try to eliminate the possibility that something else affected traffic at the same time as the move, but not move-related.
There have been quite a few major algorithm updates in the last couple of months that could also be culprits.
Use your analytics to see if organic traffic from Google and Bing have both dropped at the same time and about the same rate. This could tell you whether one SE's algorithm change was hitting, or whether both SEs suffered equally as a result of a possible structural problem after the server move.
Let us know what you find & good luck!
Paul
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
-
How does changing sitemaps affect SEO
Hi all, I have a question regarding changing the size of my sitemaps. Currently I generate sitemaps in batches of 50k. A situation has come up where I need to change that size to 15k in order to be crawled by one of our licensed services. I haven't been able to find any documentation on whether or not changing the size of my sitemaps(but not the pages included in them) will affect my rankings negatively or my SEO efforts in general. If anyone has any insights or has experienced this with their site please let me know!
Technical SEO | | Jason-Reid0 -
Is my website is over optimized for ON page SEO?
The keyword for the page is “locksmith Logan” based in: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Is webpage over used main keyword 'Logan locksmith' and what other areas are for improvement.
Technical SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Does using cufon for H-tags etc hurt SEO?
Does the use of cufon for H-tags et al affect SEO/how Google views your website?
Technical SEO | | Alligator0 -
SEO Issues
Hi, We have created a moving cost calculator tools and other moving company can added this tools their website. This is the code: [ <iframe src="http: www.enakliyat.com.tr="" fiyat-hesapla.aspx"="" height="554" width="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:none;"> ] when the other moving company added this code their websites, tool also works on the site and the tool make the referrals traffic our site.** Is it right using this method?**</iframe src="http:> http://www.enakliyat.com.tr/evden-eve-nakliyat-fiyatlari-hesaplama/ here is the tool
Technical SEO | | iskq0 -
Does having mulitste wordpress with same templaes hurt you?
Ok seo guys, don't get crazy here I am not trying to build a link wheel or anything black hat that's why I am asking. I want to create several sites that are within my niche but cannot be on the same site because it just wouldn't make sense. So for the purpose of branding a company can we have multi sites with similar templates or does google not want this. I am not trying to rank these for the sole purpose of back linking but I want them all on a mulit site so they can have the same buddy press network. Let me know what you guys think.
Technical SEO | | JasonRae1 -
Mobile Theme Switching
Hi - wondering what one should do with a mobile theme in relationship to Google. We are using wordpress and then a plugin that detects whether or not the user is on a mobile device. Should you no-follow the mobile theme since it is effectively the same content as the main site? Or just leave it be and not worry about it. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | leeg0 -
Wordpress SEO Errors - Any advice?
Hi all! My site is on the WP platform and I'm having a crawl error. Wondering if you guys could possibly help me figure out what's going on? I have a good number of 404 errors where the links seems to be appended and I can't figure out why. I've scoured my individual posts and cannot seem to find the broken link? The crawl error looks a bit like this: http://preciousthingsphotography.com/2007/12/10/chicago-family-photographer-welcome/http:%2F%2Fpreciousthingsphotography.com%2F2007%2F12%2F10%2Fchicago-family-photographer-welcome%2F You can see that my original link is somehow being doubled with the slashes being replaced? This is happening on all of my posts. Any ideas as to what could be going on? Thanks so much!
Technical SEO | | ptpgen0