New e-commerce launched, drop in traffic

[DesignHammer]

One of our clients launched a new e-commerce site and there was a significant (60%) drop in traffic in Google Analytics following the launch. We are about 10 days into the new site, and our suspicion is that the move has caused a decrease in their site authority which has lowered their search position.

The old site had the store at sitename.com/store. The new site has a Shopify store at shop.sitename.com. There were very few external followed links to the store pages, so we thought that there would be little effect for overall site traffic by moving the store to a subdomain.

Any recommendations for next steps on diagnosing the problem and working towards a solution?

[rikano]

Hey,

It's easy peasy. Here is what u need to do:

1. confirm your site sitename.com/ with google webmaster tools.

2. check the craxl errors section after 3-5 days. you will find lots of 404 errors under the /store/ directory.

3. Make the right fixes to those 404 errors (most will have to be redirected 301 to the new location urls under the new subdomain shop.sitename.com ).

Let me know if you need more help here !

[TheeDigital]

My first thought is that redirects were not done properly. Check the wayback machine or Google Cache and check some of the old links and see if they redirect. Also if there were any previous versions of the website (before the most recent,) then make sure those are redirected as well.

[Bryan_Loconto]

Hey Design Hammer!

IMO, this new site structure is the cause of what you are experiencing for SURE! Any way of reaching out to the sites that are linking to the old URL and have them update those links to the newly structured URL? This will help with the DA/PA drop and possibly help with the rankings.

Using OSE, I would run the site and go to the "Linking Domains" tab and start creating a list of the sites that are linking to the old url structure. Then reach out to them and ask if they will update. This would be my initial plan of action.

Hope this helps and BEST of luck on the recovery!