Drastic Drop in Link Juice

[GourmetDirect]

Hi Back in December we shifted my web domain from a gourmetdirect.com to gourmetdirect.co.nz as part of a site-wide revamp.  Everything was going along fine until recently when my Linking domains plummeted and external links fell from 6000 approx to 600.  We still have the .com live for loads of disfunctional reasons.  Can anyone help?  I have gone from a top ranker to a no show and my contractors are all shaking their heads.

[RyanPurkey]

Hello. Which services have you been using to keep track of link counts? Have you been keeping archived records to help pinpoint where the links went missing?  Are the numbers you're reporting aggregate for both domains?  Have you lost certain listings based on regions? (EU, US, South America, etc.)

Getting insight into some of those questions will begin to point you in the right direction.  Cheers!

[GourmetDirect]

Hi Ryan

Thank you for this.  We use Moz to track link counts and we have been in decline on links since Mid to late March this year. Both domains seem to be behaving similarly. Our links are all from legit supplier partners and 23 years of web presence and 90% would be NZ based.  Is it possible that we are in free fall because we have both sites still running having not yet retired the .com?

[TimHolmes]

If the .com domain is to be retired in the near future have you considered redirecting your existing .com links to your .co.nz domain via 301 redirects. This will hopefully give your .co.nz domain a boost. also have you put in a domain change with Google.

As both sites are running do you have potential duplicate content issues hindering efforts? Just trying to get a feeling for what you did when you instigated your domain move/transfer etc.

[RyanPurkey]

You might consider adding to your total link count with some other sources: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Majestic, Ahrefs, etc. to get a larger look into what's going on around links.  Moz's link data has gone through several changes in the past couple of months. See: http://moz.com/community/q/what-s-the-story-on-mozscape-updates and: https://moz.com/products/api/updates

The ranking drop is more concerning and, as Tim suggests below, could be due to duplicate content issues if you're still running both domains in a similar fashion.  Are there any warnings within your GSC?  What has analytics been showing you? Best of luck!

[GourmetDirect]

Hi Tim

Thanks so much for your help. We put 301s in place for our top 50 .com links when we went live. The assumption was that google would discover the others but Google hasn't so we are lodging the remaining 700 asap.  Both sites run the same content for identical products and info pages etc so yes my instinct tells me that could be the basis of our ranking drop.  There are no warnings in WMT and Analytics so far shows no drastic traffic decrease.  Fortunately its the depths of our low season here.

[GourmetDirect]

Thanks Ryan.  I will run some more Tools as you suggest and I agree, the ranking drop is what concerns me most.  So grateful for your help and thank goodness this is happening now and not in November!

[RyanPurkey]

It looks like duplicate content could definitely be the issue and is often not a warning inducing item in WMT.  I'd recommend getting the .com site fully redirected and charting out PR around the move along with a healthy content schedule leading into the high season.  Glad to hear the affects haven't hit you hard in Analytics yet and that your season will allow for the changes to go smoothly. Cheers!

[GourmetDirect]

Thanks once again Ryan.  I will do as you suggest and fingers crossed Google will respond kindly.

[GourmetDirect]

Thanks so much Ryan and Tim - Job sorted! You rock!!!