A Massive Rank Drop

Adiuvat

Adiuvat

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Hi everyone,

My site just changed to a new domain (the domain is aged, have good metrics, clean, etc.) and the migration was done seamlessly, all 301 redirect done properly and use the change site tool on GSC too.
On the first to seventh days since migration. Everything is fine. Even my traffic has doubled, because of better ranking than the previous site.

A lot of keywords that sitting on 5-10 on the old site, sitting on 1-3 on the new site.

But... everything has changed like 12 hours ago, my traffic suddenly drops and losing 95% of traffic. 90% of the ranking drop heavily.

BUykG7P

You got the idea of how massive the drop was.

Is it a normal thing if domain just changed? But from 1st to 7th days, everything is fine. I have no idea why it happened in just 2-3 hours, and my rank drops heavily.
I checked on GSC both on my old and new domain, no manual action (thank God).

Thanks, I hope you can help me to figure out what's the problem. And I hope it's just a temporary drop.
 
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Yes it is normal. i change my domain and it took around 6 months before i got my rank back, a massive drop in rankings will happen on the first month.
 
The most probable reason is, that the 301 is transferring juice yet. That can take a long time - or never happen at all. You sort of depend on googles goodwill these days im afraid. Also, is the history of your new domain clean? Niche relevant? If it isn't, that can be a problem in itself.
 
sarapbeh said:
Yes it is normal. i change my domain and it took around 6 months before i got my rank back, a massive drop in rankings will happen on the first month.
Click to expand...

But on the first to seventh days everything is fine. Everything ranked properly on the new domain.

Does it really like this?
 
juijuie said:
The most probable reason is, that the 301 is transferring juice yet. That can take a long time - or never happen at all. You sort of depend on googles goodwill these days im afraid. Also, is the history of your new domain clean? Niche relevant? If it isn't, that can be a problem in itself.
Click to expand...

The new domain is already have some relevant post before and ranking good. Even the new domain has better authority than the old one.

@sarapbeh your new domain is a fresh one or aged and already have some content before? and do you experience a good ranking increase after you changed your domain?

Here's the timeline:

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and how it is today:

gf7n1BI
 
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It doesn't seem that just 1 keyword has dropped but most of your ranking keywords.
I have not read the whole comments list, but I suppose that you are still indexed or not?
 
SirLouen said:
It doesn't seem that just 1 keyword has dropped but most of your ranking keywords.
I have not read the whole comments list, but I suppose that you are still indexed or not?
Click to expand...

Yes, 95% of my ranking keywords just dropped heavily and thankfully they are still indexed.

Yesterday, one of my money page rank dropped. But recover in about 16 hours or so.
Then today, 95% of top keywords dropped, including the keywords on dropped page yesterday.

All ranking keywords in old domain, already transferred to the new domain. No more referral traffic from old domain.
 
And have you checked how the old domain is indexing?
 
SirLouen said:
And have you checked how the old domain is indexing?
Click to expand...

The old domain still indexed. Most of my domain is coming from the domain age itself.

Have you migrated a site to a new domain before? if so, how it goes?
 
It's usual to drop the ranked when you migrate. It happened with me before, and it will be stable along with the time. Just wait and keep checking the status. I hope all will be okay very soon.
 
Ninja Turtles said:
It's usual to drop the ranked when you migrate. It happened with me before, and it will be stable along with the time. Just wait and keep checking the status. I hope all will be okay very soon.
Click to expand...

Thanks @Ninja Turtles

Did you also experience drop after getting good SERP on the new domain and then dropped a lot?
As the span between my domain change and the drop is 12 days.

Between that 12 days, my SERP is good. Better than on the old domain (because my new domain also better).
 
What happened with me, my old site was ranked at the 2nd page for most of the keyword. I choose the wrong domain so that I bought a new one and redirect it there. I saw that the new domain ranked immediately at the 5-7th page. Then after 3-4 days, all went down like out of 300. Then slowly, they started coming back, but it takes time.
 
Ninja Turtles said:
What happened with me, my old site was ranked at the 2nd page for most of the keyword. I choose the wrong domain so that I bought a new one and redirect it there. I saw that the new domain ranked immediately at the 5-7th page. Then after 3-4 days, all went down like out of 300. Then slowly, they started coming back, but it takes time.
Click to expand...

How long is that?

Mine doing good with the new domain, better than the old. Then after 12 days, got sudden drop.
 
Nothing to be worried about. It's going to take some time for everything to get migrated over. Just sit on your hands for the time being.
 
MoneyValue said:
Nothing to be worried about. It's going to take some time for everything to get migrated over. Just sit on your hands for the time being.
Click to expand...

Actually, I can understand it if the rank drop since the day one after the migration, like the case study on a few blogs.

But the thing I don't understand is...
- June 18: Domain migration is done
- June 19 - 27: Everything goes well. The rank even better on the new domain. From 5-10 average to 1-5
- June 28: One money page dropped to page 5 on 10 am then going back at 9 pm
- June 29: Every competitive keyword dropped. As you can check on the above screenshot

I can't find any source that happened like mine. Any source I read said that the rank drops gradually on the first 3 weeks, then going strong on the 4th.
But mine, going strong on the first 12 days. Then suddenly drop. Not gradually.

This is what made me so confuse. What's wrong. What happened. And how to fix this. How long it will happen.

@MoneyValue @Nargil
 
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Dont qorry it will pass some time and you will get ranking back ,only concern is how "clean" is your new domain in eyes of google.
 
This process is like rebooting your system. It shows the desktop wallpaper but the processes are not yet restarted and it takes time. The bigger the website the longer time it takes.
I don't know if luck or work pays up, but I had the same issue when I moved a tutoring website, it was ranking at around 8-10 position for more than 300 keywords (targeted mostly cities+subject+keyword). It dropped to 100+ results after I moved the website to another domain, it took around 3 weeks to come back to the first page again. In the meantime I was working on it and released press releases to give it a boost of traffic, I tried various other things also though. It worked for me.
Advice is just try to bring some traffic on your new website from different resources, the natural traffic I mean not the paid ones. Maybe it can help the site to comeback faster.
 
newmanjit said:
This process is like rebooting your system. It shows the desktop wallpaper but the processes are not yet restarted and it takes time. The bigger the website the longer time it takes.
I don't know if luck or work pays up, but I had the same issue when I moved a tutoring website, it was ranking at around 8-10 position for more than 300 keywords (targeted mostly cities+subject+keyword). It dropped to 100+ results after I moved the website to another domain, it took around 3 weeks to come back to the first page again. In the meantime I was working on it and released press releases to give it a boost of traffic, I tried various other things also though. It worked for me.
Advice is just try to bring some traffic on your new website from different resources, the natural traffic I mean not the paid ones. Maybe it can help the site to comeback faster.
Click to expand...

When did your keywords drop to 100+ results? is it right after the migration? or like me, few days (11 days on my case) and then dropped?

Here is my timeline:
- June 18: Domain migration is done
- June 19 - 27: Everything goes well. The rank even better on the new domain. From 5-10 average to 1-5
- June 28: One money page dropped to page 5 on 10 am then going back at 9 pm
- June 29: Every competitive keyword dropped. As you can check on the above screenshot

My ranking better on the new domain. But after 11-12 days, it dropped.
 
Adiuvat said:
When did your keywords drop to 100+ results? is it right after the migration? or like me, few days (11 days on my case) and then dropped?

Here is my timeline:
- June 18: Domain migration is done
- June 19 - 27: Everything goes well. The rank even better on the new domain. From 5-10 average to 1-5
- June 28: One money page dropped to page 5 on 10 am then going back at 9 pm
- June 29: Every competitive keyword dropped. As you can check on the above screenshot

My ranking better on the new domain. But after 11-12 days, it dropped.
Click to expand...
My drop came after a couple of days.... for the first 2 days it was fine after that I went to bed and the next morning I saw the drop. But my drop was a bit different than yours, My drop lasted for 2-3 days.... did not lose all the keywords at once.
 
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