Sudden drop after 301 redirection

[ITRIX]

Hi Experts

We did a 301 redirect from an old site to a new site to get rid of any bad link juice. We recently found a big drop in rankings and traffic after google last indexed the new web pages.

We did 301 using asp at page level coding. The website had 4000 approx. pages and we did 301 section by section. This is how we did as per one of the blog post in seomoz.

1. Create a sitemap for your old domain.
2. Create content (contact information, description of your company, indication of future plans) and something link worthy for the new domain. (You should start trying to build links early)
3. Setup the new domain and make it live.
4. Register and verify your old domain and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools.
5. Create a custom 404 page for old domain which suggests visiting new domain.
6. Old Domain error checking and fixing
7. In a development environment, test the redirects from the old domain to the new domain. Ideally, this will be a 1:1 redirect. (www.example-old-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html to www.example-new-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html)
8. 301 redirect your old domain to your new domain.
9. Submit your old sitemap to Google and Bing. The submission pages are within Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center (This step will make the engines crawl your old URLs, see that they are 301 redirects and change their index accordingly.)
10. Fill out the Change of Address form in Google Webmaster Tools.
11. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the engines. (This will tell them about any new URLs that were not present on the old domain)
12. Wait until Google Webmaster Tools updates and fix any errors it is indicated in the Diagnostics section.
13. Monitor search engine results to make sure new domain is being properly indexed.

We also did a press release with prweb to announce the new launch. We followed the steps recommended in one of the

I am not sure what to do next. Can anyone suggest if its normal to see a drop and we should wait for some time or if we did something wrong?

We are loosing business with every single day. Please help !

[StreamlineMetrics]

I've redirected tons of sites and sometimes there is a temporary decline in rankings/traffic as a result of the search engines having to crawl the old site, follow the 301s and replace the old rankings with the new pages. But usually the decline isn't too drastic and only lasts for a week or two, if that. It may be different with a site with thousands of pages though. How long has it been since you added the 301 redirects? If you'd like, feel free to PM me your URLs and I can take a look.

[josh-riley]

To your point about a new domain - new domains aren't given as much validity as old ones, which can mean you have to do some rebuilding and re-earn rankings. If the goal was to get rid of old, bad link juice, what have you done to drive new links to your new domain (and PRWeb does not count in any way - it's a scam, IMHO)? That's another factor that could impact a positive improvement.

At the same time, I may not have read as closely as I could have, but how could you do 1:1 redirects from the old site to the new and yet offered up a 404 page to direct people from the old domain to the new? Was there a specific reason why you didn't want to 301 from the old main domain URL to the new one?

Yes, it's normal to see a drop and this all takes time to recoup. It's the trade off you made when you opted to start from scratch, unfortunately. The other thing is, there could be issues going on with the site that aren't related to spammy links - I don't know enough about your site to speak to specifics, but it's another possibility that something else could be wonky.

[ITRIX]

Experts, Thank you for the response.

We have done page to page redirection using asp code. Please find a screenshot attached of a page from the old site. There is no 404 page displayed in the old site as it simply redirects from the old site to the new site. For example, if a user goes to www.oldsite.com/abc.html it redirects to www.newsite.com/abc.html.

Before setting up 301 redirection, Back links from Web 2.0 and other good article directories had been built for the new domain. We started the 301 redirection in September and completed section by section. Rankings for the new domain came up in google and stayed until we filled up the "Change of Address" form on 20th Nov after redirecting the homepage. Please find the screenshot of the analytics attached.

On Nov 28th, many of our keywords disappeared from the rankings and we saw a big drop in traffic. Rankings are not even in 100 at the moment.

1. Will it be appropriate to wait for a week or two to see if google re-indexes the new website.

2. Shall i roll back the entire process and withdraw my request for change of address. Shall i remove 301 from the old site.

3. Have i set it up correctly

Thanks for all your help. I appreciate.

GA-drop2.png old-site-code.png

[ITRIX]

Experts, Thank you for the response.

We have done page to page redirection using asp code. Please find a screenshot attached of a page from the old site. There is no 404 page displayed in the old site as it simply redirects from the old site to the new site. For example, if a user goes to www.oldsite.com/abc.html it redirects to www.newsite.com/abc.html.

Before setting up 301 redirection, Back links from Web 2.0 and other good article directories had been built for the new domain. We started the 301 redirection in September and completed section by section. Rankings for the new domain came up in google and stayed until we filled up the "Change of Address" form on 20th Nov after redirecting the homepage. Please find the screenshot of the analytics attached.

On Nov 28th, many of our keywords disappeared from the rankings and we saw a big drop in traffic. Rankings are not even in 100 at the moment.

1. Will it be appropriate to wait for a week or two to see if google re-indexes the new website.

2. Shall i roll back the entire process and withdraw my request for change of address. Shall i remove 301 from the old site.

3. Have i set it up correctly

Thanks for all your help. I appreciate.

Some images that might help...

GA-drop2.png old-site-code.png GA-drop2.png old-site-code.png