11 Potential Reasons Traffic Dropped

Website migration is a kind of tedious processes that may profit your website in the long run — however quite a bit can go unsuitable within the course of.

Improper redirects, issues with robots.txt information, sitemap points, and even damaged inner hyperlinks can inadvertently trigger your website migration to drive a drop in natural search visitors.

Identifying why your visitors is dropping or dropped considerably after a website migration generally is a matter of trial and error.

Use this column as a guidelines to double-check these widespread causes websites lose visitors after a website migration.

Start by Running a Crawler to Generate a List of Common Issues

First, just remember to have an entire checklist of points plaguing your website at your disposal so you possibly can confirm and proper any points that will come up.

ScreamingFrog is the go-to device for scanning your website and seeing all the page-specific points that you’ve got.

Run a scan in your website to see what points pop up. The scan can take some time for bigger websites, but it surely’s value it to search out issues with:

Maybe you’re like me and like to do most issues manually however this device can prevent a ton of time.

Keep your scan information obtainable, as a result of it’s going to assist you to quickly determine lots of the points under.

You also needs to carry out a significant scan and backup your information earlier than any main web site migration or redesign. This will provide you with information for comparability so you possibly can see what has modified.

Make certain to save lots of a duplicate of your website’s HTML/format earlier than a redesign, so you possibly can assessment and revisit if wanted.

11 Most Common Reasons Sites Lose Traffic After a Website Migration

See if any one among these (or a mix thereof) could possibly be inflicting or contributing to your post-migration visitors losses.

1. Canonicalized Tag Changes

Which web page in your website misplaced visitors or rankings? Visit these pages and analyze the canonical tags to see in the event that they have been modified in a method that affected your visitors.

A number of widespread points with tags:

• Pointing to non-relevant pages.
• Programming points (instance: trailing slash lacking).
• Pointing to previous URLs that now not exist.

 2. Robots.txt and/or Non-indexable Content

Open your robots.txt file or pages that misplaced visitors to see if the pages are nonetheless indexable. An difficulty with indexing could be the perpetrator to your visitors loss.

Google has its personal robots.txt tester tool that may enable you determine and proper any points that you could be be having together with your file.

Read extra: Google’s John Mueller Explains How Pages Blocked by Robots.txt Are Ranked

3. Lost Meta Data

Your migration could have triggered your web site to lose its meta information within the course of. Title tags and meta descriptions could also be misplaced resulting from a single column being misplaced in a database switch.

Using the info out of your ScreamingFrog scan, test to be sure that your website’s meta title and outline are nonetheless correct and intact.

If you misplaced this information, you’ll want so as to add these necessary metas again to your website. You could possibly run a fast Google search of your website utilizing “website:URL.com” to catch a glimpse of what the meta information was earlier than the migration.

Or, use the backup you created earlier than the migration.

Otherwise, you’ll have so as to add your keyword-rich titles and descriptions again in manually. That will be time-consuming to close unimaginable relying on the dimensions of your website.

P.S. If you realize a database specialist or don’t thoughts performing some digging, you could possibly import your previous meta information into your new website.

4. Page Speed Loss

If you probably did a full web site migration or modified servers, you will have misplaced some web page pace within the course of.

Be certain to test a number of of the pages the place you’ve misplaced visitors to see how your speed is performing.

You could have to:

• Verify that your CDN was a part of the migration and is working correctly.
• Verify that your caching system is in place and working correctly.
• Check PageSpeed Insights to search out any simple fixes that may enhance your website’s pace.

Server points might also be plaguing your website and never permitting it to load quick sufficient.

5. Check Your Internal Links

Internal hyperlinks are an amazing, pure method to preserve individuals in your website, and it additionally helps search engines like google and yahoo go from one web page of your website to a different.

Make certain that the interior hyperlinks in your weblog posts and on pages are linking to your present website, not the previous one.

6. Content Accessibility Issues

Google Search Console lists all listed pages in your website. Log into GSC and navigate to Index > Coverage.

Click on error, legitimate with warning, legitimate or excluded.

Here’s you’ll see if a URL has any points and may hover over and click on Inspect URL to be taught extra.

On the inspection web page, you possibly can “take a look at dwell URL” and determine any points that Google may be having when attempting to entry the web page.

7. Broken Redirects

Site redirects are an integral a part of any web site migration. If you didn’t have a 301 redirect plan in place when migrating your website, you’re going to have quite a lot of points post-migration.

You’ll lose visitors as a result of search engines like google and yahoo aren’t instructed the place your website has migrated.

Visitors could also be getting misplaced within the course of, too. Redirect points generally is a nightmare; that is one which Web optimization professionals dread.

Generate stories in ScreamingFrog to search out any redirect loops or chains which might be having points.

You’ll need to:

• Clean up any redirect loops.
• Follow redirect chains to verify the redirection is correct.
• Check to verify previous URLs are correctly redirected to your new URLs, updating hyperlinks to pages utilizing a 301 direct, and linking to the brand new web page as an alternative.

Upload a whole checklist of previous URLs into ScreamingFrog, crawl these URLs, and analyze the report back to be sure that the beginning URL and vacation spot URL are correct.

Verify each the ultimate standing and remaining standing code, too.

While you’re at it, ensure that all the previous pages are redirected utilizing 301 redirects and not 302 redirects, which aren’t everlasting.

8. External Links Lost

External hyperlinks stay a strong sign to search engines like google and yahoo. If you’ve constructed an amazing website with lot of natural hyperlinks, you anticipate to see excessive rankings.

After a migration, it might be worthwhile to achieve out to those website homeowners to ask them to replace their hyperlinks to your new website.

If their previous hyperlinks are damaged or go to a web page in your previous website that isn’t part of your redirect, this may trigger issues with search rankings.

You could even need to redirect these damaged hyperlinks again to your new website’s comparable or similar web page.

For instance, if the hyperlink was to website1.com/canines you could need to redirect the damaged hyperlink again to website2.com/canines. You also can redirect the damaged hyperlink to a web page that’s comparable in nature.

9. Platform/Hosting Issues

Are you re-platforming or shifting servers? Change is an efficient factor, however it could additionally trigger little points that make your website’s visitors fall:

• Firewalls blocking search engine bots.
• Platforms utilizing JS, which is tougher for bots to crawl.
• Slow speeds and poor efficiency.
• Country restrictions.

If you’re re-platforming and/or switching servers or have already got, go over all the pages the place your visitors dropped fastidiously.

I like to recommend giving these platforms or servers a take a look at drive earlier than going all in and migrating your website.

Just a little preparation will help you keep away from platform or internet hosting points that may trigger your visitors to drop.

10. Images

Does your website obtain quite a lot of picture visitors? If so, it’s doable that your picture URLs weren’t redirected correctly throughout the migration. Check to be sure that your picture URLs are:

• Linking to the correct photographs.
• Linking to your new area.

If you could have a CDN, you may be capable to make a fast change to your CDN to vary all your photographs over to your new website.

In the occasion that you just used a CNAME to create your individual picture URLs, be sure that the CNAME is pointing to your new website and/or server.

11. Google Updates

It’s additionally doable that your website adjustments coincided with a Google replace. Google’s updates do greater than change their search algorithms – they will drive your workforce loopy.

Sometimes, an replace happens near a migration and may trigger your website’s rankings to fluctuate.

Check whether or not Google has pushed any major updates. The points you and your workforce are having won’t be associated to your migration.

Recovering & Rebuilding from Traffic Losses

Collecting and benchmarking information earlier than the web site migration occurs is important, retaining observe of all of the adjustments earlier than/after.

I like to make use of Google Analytics Annotations to maintain observe of Web optimization-related adjustments.

I additionally encourage programmers to trace their adjustments in the same method, so Web optimization professionals can revisit and see what occurred that result in the visitors drops.

Correcting all your website’s points takes time and endurance. If you’re fortunate, you may discover the perpetrator answerable for your website’s visitors points in minutes, however Web optimization at all times requires a long-term method.

Go by way of your website, test for these points, and make any corrections essential. When you’re glad together with your adjustments, wait a number of days or even weeks to see in case your visitors recovers to pre-migration ranges.

If your visitors continues to be drastically decrease than earlier than the migration, preserve working by way of this checklist and attain out for assist with any troublesome points you possibly can’t appear to determine.

Then, take what you’ve discovered and apply it going ahead to construct your visitors and make your website stronger than ever. Go forth with confidence!

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