New domain wipes out domain authority

[mfrgolfgti]

A client wanted to change their domain name, which we have now done. The site content itself is exactly the same. We put 301 redirect links in so that Google searchers would redirect from the old site to the new one. However Moz then said that it couldn't crawl the old domain because of the redirects and advised creating a brand new campaign for the new domain. We have done this but now Moz says that the domain authority of the new site is 2 (it was 14 on the old domain).

Specifics are:
old domain: https://ryemeadcleaning.co.uk
new domain: https://ryemeadgroup.co.uk

So basically it seems like we're starting again from scratch with the new domain and all the SEO from the old domain has been lost? Have we done it wrong?

[GastonRiera]

Hi Maureen,

If the migration and redirection were made correctly, then there is nothing to worry about.
DA will be transferred, give Roger (Moz bot) time to recrawl and process all the "new" pages.
Also, Google said that redirections do not lose page rank (in common words: authority and ranking hablity).

Just in case, these resources about migrations might come handy in your situation. The Website Migration Guide: SEO Strategy, Process, & Checklist - Moz Blog
The Ultimate SEO Guide for Successful Web Migrations at #DigitalOlympus - AleydaSolis
Migration Best Practices - SMX London 2018 <- backedup by JohnMu in this tweet

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

[Vijay-Gaur]

Hi There,

I understand your concern and know how it feels when it looks like one has to start from scratch for establishing Domain authority. Whenever a domain is transferred (hoping it was done with utmost care to transfer authority), it takes search engines and other Bots take a couple of weeks or even months to understand that they have to point to the new website for the searched phrases. The reason is that links are re-crawled, and that takes its own sweet time. In the meantime, if you can start working on directly establishing authority for the new domain, it would be a bonus for DA when eventually bots have re-established and re-configured their serps.

I hope it helps. Let me know if you have further questions, I will be happy to answer them.

Regards,

Vj