Changed domain and now lost all rank
 

On Wednesday I changed my domain to a new one, using a 301 redirect in a htaccess file, also I submitted a change of address in webmaster tools. Every day since then my site is not appearing for my main keywords in Google Searcg , and day by day the old domain ranks are being removed. I have read from numerous sources that doing a 301 redirect should mean that rank is not lost?, however this is not the case.

I have looked for Manual Webspam actions and there are none, and I cant see any signs of a penalty. The new domain is ranking for some odd phrases on page 20-50, but not my main keywords on page 1 as with before.

The one thing I do know is that the previous owner parked the domain on SEDO, and the domain just got dropped a few weeks ago.

I feel like I have destroyed my site as before I was getting like 6000-7000 visitors from google a day however at this rate it looks like i'll just be getting like 50 a day :(

What would be the best approach to take now, would it be best to go back to the old domain or just wait it out and see what happens?

Sorry to hear that.
Yeah, I had a site was ranking and moved the same thing and got destroyed.
Now I just leave a site how it is and just build a new one.
Maybe you can move it back and just start a new site on the new domain.

Thanks for the reply, can you tell me how long you waited until moving back, I have read a case where the person got their rank back after 3 weeks, hopefully this will happen to me. Luckily I still have about 4000 direct visitors so its not all bad.

I think the problem might be that I moved to the domain as soon as I bought it, apparently you are supposed to let the domain 'age' first and put up a coming soon page.

A proper 301 redirect should work seamlessly for a busy site like that. Are you a) redirecting from the same page on old domain to same page on new domain or are you b) redirecting everything to the homepage on the new site or c) redirecting to new URLs on the new site?

The first works well, not sure if b) and c) will.

I am doing a)

However I think my rank is slowly coming back as I am now ranking on the first page for some of my keywords :)

Hopefully In a few weeks it should be nearly back to normal.

It should happen quicker than that but I haven't done one of these for a year so iif you're happy :)

According to this

moz.com/community/q/how-long-will-the-301-ranking-swap-over-take

It takes time depending on how authoritative the old domain was.

I will post graphs when things appear to stabilize.

After 5 weeks I finally got a similar number of google impressions/clicks back :)
(domain was switched 02/18)

Old Domain

https://static.dyp.im/csUl6hn8C4/e5f...f1ea609e5e.PNG

New Domain

https://static.dyp.im/Swatuq09Gg/653...2895b1b786.PNG

nice se traffic

Thanks for graphs!

Great :thumbsup

:thumbsup:thumbsup

post he URL so we can take a better look