WebDesigner fucked up my Clients SERP

[Inviz1]

Basically my client was ranking around 3-4 for a medium competition local business, his domain was let's say www.site.com, he hired a web designer who redesigned his website and now he created the website as site.com, went to google webmaster removed www.site.com property and added site.com property and sitemaps for the same. He didn't redirect www.site.com to site.com. Fast forward a month later the client's website ranks 45 at SERP and he hired me to get his site back at #3.

I went to ahrefs and checked his www.site.com had around 800 backlinks, checked every one of them and they were good directory, press releases, local news sites, etc but site.com had 60 backlinks. Went to domain health check and saw a lot of duplicate content being shown as www. and without www as google was treating them separately.

Now, since I figured out what the web designer did, how do I go about recovering the damage?

Things I have done:

• Added www.site.com as a property on google and set www. as preferred domain.
• Added these 2 rewrite rules to .htaccess

  • RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
    
    ErrorDocument 404 /index.html

Apart from these is there anything else I can do to recover his SERP?

 

[Stan8818]

I think above that you should report to your client what was the proplem, lol)) and punch the designer in da face


Also, you can google for some services that might help you reindexing the site faster... aaand check the sitemaps

 

[CialisBilligInternet]

Lol designer must of been savage.

 

[ThopHayt]

Don't complain, without that idiot webdesigner they wouldn't have hired you. I wouldn't mention much to the client, just act like it was difficult and they will be happy.

Sounds like an easy fix too.

-ThopHayt

 

[Inviz1]

Don't complain, without that idiot webdesigner they wouldn't have hired you. I wouldn't mention much to the client, just act like it was difficult and they will be happy.

Sounds like an easy fix too.

-ThopHayt

Well I wasn't complaining, I just wanted some help if I should do anything more than change htaccess and change property preferred domain.

 

[ThopHayt]

Yeah it sounds like you know what to do. I'd start with the basics and change everything back. And make sure the sitemap is right and nothing else was screwed with, look for orphaned pages and 301 them.

-ThopHayt

 

[GoDesain]

you should 301 redirect www non www ( naked domain )
you can ue htaccess on apache or nginx.conf if using nginx...

 

[Inviz1]

you should 301 redirect www non www ( naked domain )
you can ue htaccess on apache or nginx.conf if using nginx...

So, you recommend me to use naked domain but just 301 www. domain and it should do the trick?

 

[asap1]

Just 301 all the old urls to the new urls.

Nothing else you can do really.

 

[Finn]

Sounds like a great designer.

 

[GoDesain]

So, you recommend me to use naked domain but just 301 www. domain and it should do the trick?

it about you my friend... if you like www in front, restore your old config ( htaccess or nginx )
Please make sure, this not about www only.. also check new template structure and compare pageload with old and new domain
if you like naked domain.. use 301 redirect... from www to non www
wait few days.. hope your rank will back... also check on google webmaster where is dead link...
and convert all dead link to 301 redirect.. check on "moz.com" for 301 advice..

 

[nicelord]

And now the designers are care about domain name.

 

[Inviz1]

and convert all dead link to 301 redirect.. check on "moz.com" for 301 advice..

I have added a rule in htaccess to redirect all 404 dead links to my homepage

ErrorDocument 404 /index.html

 

[GoDesain]

if your page still exist, better redirect to 301..
example : old ( www.site.com/my-web-page ), and new ( site.com/my-web-page )
if really dead or not exist use 404 and link to 404 page instead your homepage..

301 = same content but change location
404 = will life in search result max 30 days and then gone
410 = burn faster than 404

 

[xinga]

If I was you i'd contact the designer and ask him for his other clients ;-) ;-)

 

[vitarank]

yes, redirecting would likely fix the problem.

 

[randyman]

Man, you're lucky. After all this said and done, and your client back on 1st page, you can use this as good case study to fish other clients.