Companies change web site domains for a lot of causes — rebranding, acquisition, product modifications, and extra. Whereas it’s typically needed, a brand new area reduces natural search site visitors by upwards of 30% in my expertise.
Much like a brand new URL construction, area modifications require 301 redirects, which leak fairness. I’ve seen rankings slip for months afterward. If the decline persists, an in depth audit may assist.
Listed below are my go-to instruments for domain-change audits.
Google Search Console
Step one is to maintain the deserted area verified inside Search Console to entry historic rating and click on knowledge.
Subsequent, after verifying the possession of your new area, notify Google of the swap through Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” instrument at Settings > Change of handle.
Notify Google of the brand new area through Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” instrument. Click on picture to enlarge.
Search Console can establish which pages or folders misplaced essentially the most site visitors from the transfer. For this, open the Efficiency > Pages experiences for the previous and new domains (every in separate tabs). By default, each URL lists are sorted by the variety of natural clicks, making it straightforward to check the top-performing pages.
Don’t delay the analysis, as Search Console exhibits solely 16 months of information. I sometimes entry the report two, three, and 4 months afterward to observe shifts.
It’s signal if no sections, classes, or URLs decline greater than others — the transfer seemingly produced no structural issues.
If some areas slipped greater than others, flip to the Wayback Machine.
Wayback Machine
Area modifications ceaselessly embody altering the location construction, particularly with acquisitions or product variations. Wayback Machine helps establish which structural modifications lowered site visitors.
Having famous in Search Console the URLs with materials drops, evaluate archived variations of these pages in Wayback Machine to the brand new ones, guaranteeing:
- The primary navigation contains the URLs as prominently because the earlier area,
- The URLs are interlinked all through the location — in associated merchandise, guides, sidebar widgets, footers, and so forth.
Semrush
A loss in hyperlink fairness from the previous website to the brand new may account for the site visitors decline. Semrush will help pinpoint the loss.
To start out, run each domains by way of the instrument’s main evaluation bar. Then proceed to Backlink Analytics > Listed Pages and test the field “Damaged hyperlinks.” This report for each websites will checklist the pages which have damaged backlinks and return 404 or 410 errors.
Semrush’s “Damaged hyperlinks” report lists the pages that return 404 or 410 errors. Click on picture to enlarge.
Screaming Frog
Area modifications typically produce surprising structural glitches. Therefore it’s essential to run the brand new website by way of an internet crawler equivalent to Screaming Frog, JetOctopus, or related.
Most crawlers enable restricted entry at no cost. Screaming Frog, for instance, crawls 500 pages with out cost. Past that, the paid model is $259 per 12 months. It features a crawl-compare function, useful for contrasting crawls of the previous website and the brand new.
When crawling a website, search for redirect chains. These lure exterior and inner hyperlink fairness and lengthen the crawl time. Each could trigger site visitors declines.
