What do you do with .net after a .com migration?

[Sika22]

So my company has gone from .net to .com.  I have analytics up and running as well as WMT.  I noticed today that on the .com we only had 1 visitor yesterday and 0 today.  We have just put out a major press release as well as other PR related things and I'm only seeing slight traffic on the .net.  Any ideas?  What should I do with the .net in WMTs and Analytics?  Do I need to turn something off?  Is this normal behavior about a week into a migration?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

Is the .net still live? You should have advised Google in GWT of the change of address and then setup 301's to redirect pages. Do you know if any of this has been done?

There is a very useful Google article on the process here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

-Andy

[Sika22]

Redirects are all in place but when I go to do the change of address it says no change of address is pending.  I don't see any other options.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Sorry for just copy and pasting this. Here are suggestions for what to do if there is no site change possible:

If your new site doesn't appear in the Select a site list, check the following:

• Make sure you've added your new site to your Webmaster Tools account, and verified ownership.
• Make sure that your new site is not a subdomain. For example, you can use www.example.com, but notwww.example.com/newsite or http://newsite.example.com.
• If you've specified a preferred domain for your new site, only that preferred domain will appear in the list. For example, if www.example.com is not appearing, make sure that you have not specified http://example.com has your preferred domain.
• If you submit a change of address notice redirecting traffic to your new site (www.example.com), you can't then submit another change of address notice specifying that the content on www.example.com has moved to a new site.

-Andy

[Sika22]

Thanks I have read all of that.  Not sure why I don't have the change of address option.  I am assuming because we launched with redirects already in place.  I added both the www and non-www versions and did choose preferred domain.  The .net www and non-www as well as both for the .com are still showing in webmaster tools if that is where you "select a site".

[Andy.Drinkwater]

External redirects shouldn't have any influence in what Google does when wishing to select a domain move.

It's a little awkward without actually seeing everything, and I have never had any problems myself, but perhaps someone else could chip in with additional info?

-Andy

[Sika22]

My only thought at this point is that someone else with access could have already made the change.  If that is true will the .net sites eventually go away?  Are they still receiving traffic because google just hasn't picked up all the redirects yet?  Thanks for all of your suggestions it is most appreciated

[Sika22]

Let me also add that in Analytics I am seeing that now the traffic is back on the .net and no longer showing up on the .com.  I have no clue why this would happen.  It just dawned on me that my boss re-implemented our old urchin code on top of our new analytics code.  This corresponds with the time that the .com stopped showing results.  I can only assume this is what is causing the sudden drop off in traffic on the .com.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Just to check, are the 301's all working? What happens if someone visits one of the .net pages?

[Sika22]

Yep they all re-direct.  I think this has something to do with putting the old urchin code from the .net on to the .com.  I'm going to see if it can be removed.  We were unable to figure out how to implement the .js to get a UTMZ cookie setup.

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

Have you been able to remove the old urchin code and is analytics showing the traffic to the new domain now?

Cheers,

Jane

[Sika22]

Well we had to leave the urchin code as we cannot figure out how to get the new UTMZ cookie into our code.  We did however put back the new UA that we need so results did start to appear again. Thanks for all the help.  If anyone has info on the UTMZ cookie please let me know.