Does Switching Web Hosts Hurt SEO?

[JodiFTM]

A few months ago, my site was shut down by BlueHost because of performance issues, so I moved it to WP Engine, and cleaned up most of the plug-ins.  Since then, my search engine traffic has decreased over 50%.  Does switching web hosts hurt SEO?

Thanks!

[ThompsonPaul]

As long as nothing's changed in terms of site structure/URLs and auxiliary files, changing servers shouldn't have any effect on SEO, Jodi.

First thing to make certain is that your auxiliary files (.htaccess, Robots.txt, and xml sitemap) are the same as on the old site. I've seen many instances where new default versions were applied on the new server, causing problems. Make sure your xml sitemap is in place, is complete and is updating correctly.

If your old .htaccess file had customized redirects in it, those may not have been transferred to the new server. (This would have been a manual process - needing to be done by whoever performed the migration.)

You can also pop into Google Webmaster Tools and make sure it's not showing any unexpected crawling errors or increased 404s. Also check that the crawl rate seems to be about the same as it was before the move.

Did you see the traffic drop exactly at the time of the server move? Or did happen gradually over a couple of weeks? Or did you see it drop quickly, but not right at the move date? I ask because it's necessary to try to eliminate the possibility that something else affected traffic at the same time as the move, but not move-related.

There have been quite a few major algorithm updates in the last couple of months that could also be culprits.

Use your analytics to see if organic traffic from Google and Bing have both dropped at the same time and about the same rate. This could tell you whether one SE's algorithm change was hitting, or whether both SEs suffered equally as a result of a possible structural problem after the server move.

Let us know what you find & good luck!

Paul

[JodiFTM]

Thanks Paul!  The site traffic dropped the day of the move.

Google traffic dropped 31% and Bing traffic dropped 18%.

I just checked crawl errors and WOW!  There are a lot.  Could that be causing the problems?  I also noticed that the kilobytes downloaded per day have decreased a lot since the move.

Thanks again.

[ThompsonPaul]

Yea, the combination of a lot of crawl errors and the reduction in KB downloaded seem to indicate the SEs are having trouble indexing your site. especially if the crawl errors are 404s. The SEs will want to drop those pages from their index thinking they no longer exist, which will cost you the traffic.

What's the major category of crawl errors you're seeing? And do you have your Google Analytics code installed on your 404 page? (if not, you should).

Paul

[JodiFTM]

Thanks again.  Most of the crawl errors are 404.  I think I had redirects on the old host that didn't transfer over. We're working on fixing those now.

I'm pretty sure I have Google Analytics on my 404 page - I have the Thesis template for Wordpress and have the Analytics set to load on every page.

[ThompsonPaul]

Yea, losing the redirects can definitely cause ranking and SEO problems. This can happen if the contents of the old site's .htaccess file didn't' get updated into the new site, or if using the WordPress Redirection plugin, the plugin somehow got deactivated or its redirects messed up.

Get those crawl errors fixed, then give the SEs some time to recrawl and see if most of the problem goes away.

By the way - nice looking site!

Paul

PS Marking whichever answer you found most helpful will help out other users and gives a bit of a points boost as well