40% Drop in Traffic since redesign

Andrew-SEO

Hi

One of our sites has seen a 40% drop in traffic since a redesign

We have a complete 301 redirect list and have replicated all successful content.

https://www.englishriviera.co.uk

Any opinions would be most helpful.

Nigel_Carr

Hi Andrew

If you type in to Google - site:https://www.englishriviera.co.uk inurl:http:

You will see that there are around 255 http pages still indexed some of which were cached on the 19 December so I am guessing that your switch from HTTPS was quite recent.

While Google resolves these pages there can be an overlap with both versions ranking and of course, Google sees them as duplicates. It is fairly common to see a short drop in rankings because of this but it is not permanent. Google favours HTTPS sites over standard HTTP so it should not be long it comes bouncing back.

I would go through the URLs you find by that search (above) and check that they all redirect. Meanwhile more on the switch here:

https://security.googleblog.com/2016/09/moving-towards-more-secure-web.html

and: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543

There is also a helpful checklist here: http://searchengineland.com/http-https-seos-guide-securing-website-246940

Regards

Nigel

Andrew-SEO

Thanks for this - I can see the search results. Where can you see the date they were cached?

Thanks so much for the response.

Nigel_Carr

Hi Andrew

If you go to the search results from the INURL link I put there then go to the right of the URL there is a green arrow. Hit that and the word 'cached' and you will see a version of the page as scraped by Google with a caching date.

Regards

Nigel

YsvJpSt

Andrew-SEO

Thanks for this - very helpful. They aren't really the core pages though, so although this was super helpful I think something else is also going on.

Anyone else have an idea?

Nigel_Carr

Apart from that, I can't see a single earth shattering problem that is causing your site to drop just a lot of things wrong with the site which combined, may be causing that effect.

I have scanned the site and:

1. Duplicate content 911 pages but most are 'order' pages and those related to Trip Advisor - they don't seem to be doing you any harm as most of the searches are high up, eg dog friendly B&B in Paignton

These pages are dominated by a huge hero graphic that takes the whole of the top of the page then a search box - I would consider removing the graphics and starting these pages at the listings. I would then add some descriptive content surrounding the themes.

I would check in Google - GSC how the site handles the 'order' parameter - as it narrows/sorts content - maybe adjust the setting to that.

You have a lot of listings which are incomplete - I'd remove the wording Awaiting Copy as it's on all of these:

Duplicate Description & Titles: You have quite a lot - some are from the sort/order others need separating out:

All of these have the same Description: 'you’ll find plenty of dog-friendly hotels and holiday accommodation here on the English Riviera, Devon’s Beautiful Bay'

With this title: 'Dog Friendly Hotels in Torbay, Pet Friendly Hotels - English Riviera'

Awaiting Further Details - duplication

https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/babbacombe-model-village-easter-egg-trail-p1413873
https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/super-summer-trail-bygones-p1491443
https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/half-term-coin-mystery-bygones-p1826943
https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/half-term-teddy-bear-picnic-bygones-p1491313
https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/easter-holidays-egg-hunt-bygones-p1666163
https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/whats-on/halloween-hunt-bygones-p1449143

Finally, a lot of descriptions are too long - over 156 characters.(1252 including order pages)

A lot of titles too long - (474 including order pages)

You have no canonicalisation at all and best practice is to self-canonicalise.

Apart from that?

Little written content.

I'm guessing that a lot of this would have been on the previous site anyway - the overuse of large hero graphics is an irritation as you have to scroll to see content. There is no simple search - it's complicated and seems to appear on every page.

Missing

No Twitter cards
No Facebook OG
No Schema.org

So lots missing but nothing that a good SEO couldn't sort for you.

It is a combination of lots of things.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Nigel

Andrew-SEO

Hi Nigel

Sorry for the delay in responding. This has been so so helpful. Thanks very much.

I have people working on correcting the content issues.

The issue remaining is google will only index half of the site. I'm not sure why this is. Do you know of any sitemap testing tools?

Nigel_Carr

You can test the site in GSC - Google search console.

It's quite common for Google not to fully index a sitemap so check in there first.

Also my comment about Descriptions is slightly out of date already! Google has recently been allowing up to 300 characters so maybe curtail any description shortening - make them attractive through a great call to action.

Regards

Nigel

Andrew-SEO

It a really low portion of the sitemap though. It's of concern. I work with around 20 sites and the rest are indexed fully.

This one used to be indexed

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