Companies change web site domains for a lot of causes — rebranding, acquisition, product adjustments, and extra. Whereas it’s usually crucial, a brand new area reduces natural search visitors by upwards of 30% in my expertise.

Just like a brand new URL construction, area adjustments require 301 redirects, which leak fairness. I’ve seen rankings slip for months afterward. If the decline persists, an in depth audit might assist.

Listed here 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 information.

Subsequent, after verifying the possession of your new area, notify Google of the swap through Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” device at Settings > Change of handle.

Notify Google of the brand new area through Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” device. Click on picture to enlarge.

Search Console can establish which pages or folders misplaced probably the most visitors from the transfer. For this, open the Efficiency > Pages studies 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 simple to check the top-performing pages.

Don’t delay the analysis, as Search Console reveals solely 16 months of information. I sometimes entry the report two, three, and 4 months afterward to watch shifts.

It’s a great 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 adjustments ceaselessly embrace altering the positioning construction, particularly with acquisitions or product variations. Wayback Machine helps establish which structural adjustments lowered 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, making certain:

• The principle navigation contains the URLs as prominently because the earlier area,
• The URLs are interlinked all through the positioning — in associated merchandise, guides, sidebar widgets, footers, and so forth.

Semrush

A loss in hyperlink fairness from the previous website to the brand new might account for the visitors decline. Semrush may help pinpoint the loss.

To start out, run each domains by way of the device’s major evaluation bar. Then proceed to Backlink Analytics > Listed Pages and test the field “Damaged hyperlinks.” The report for each websites will record 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 adjustments usually produce surprising structural glitches. Therefore it’s essential to run the brand new website by way of an internet crawler similar to Screaming Frog, JetOctopus, or related.

Most crawlers permit 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 characteristic, helpful for contrasting crawls of the previous website and the brand new.

When crawling a website, search for redirect chains. These lure exterior and inside hyperlink fairness and lengthen the crawl time. Each might trigger visitors declines.