Traffic has not recovered from https switch a year ago.

[DirkC]

Did the traffic drop occur right after the migration to https or a few months/weeks later?

Was the migration close to the date of an algorithm change?

Did you see any change in behaviour of your users after migration (time on page, bounce rate, avg. pages/session,...)?

Was there a spike of errors in WMT after migration or did everything go quite smoothly?

Was it just a migration to https - or did other elements change on the website?

To be very honest - trying to figure out one year after migration what went wrong is an almost impossible task - especially because you don't have access to the WMT data from migration.

The best you can do is to dive deep in to your analytics figures (search traffic) and compare data before/after migration and try to understand what might have had an impact.

rgds,

Dirk

[DonnaDuncan]

Is it just the category pages that have lost traffic? Have rankings and sales also changed significantly? Are canonicals pointing to https? Have sitemaps been updated?

[EcommerceSite]

1. The traffic decline wasn't sudden or initially very much. If you look at our traffic it looks like a pyramid with the peak being when we switched to https. It has just been a slow gradual decline every since.

2. The migration was Sept 11 last year, I don't think there was anything that week.

3. User behavior has stayed constant.

4. No spike in errors, the migration went very smooth.

[EcommerceSite]

All pages have dipped a little but the category pages seems to have lost the bulk. We have had rankings and sales drops. Canonicals are in correctly and sitemaps have been updated properly.

[DonnaDuncan]

You didn't answer Dirk's question (above). Has the site structure changed at all?

Has your reporting changed? Added any new filters? Forgot to block your own company's visits from being tracked? Is the tracking code consistent on all pages? (Although it's probably not a reporting problem if, as you say, rankings and sales have also dropped.)

It's good you're doing the audit. Doesn't appear to be an obvious problem.

[EcommerceSite]

I don't see where he asked about the site structure, but no it didn't change.

Reporting has not changed, no new filters, we block our company's visits, tracking code is consistent.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

We've actually seen Google get harsh on category-type pages across a wide number of industries and sites. It's even happened here at Moz. If your HTTPS is implemented correctly (and sounds like you are reasonably certain it is) you might want to look to other areas.

I'd look at your category pages and make sure:

1. Pagination is implemented correctly
2. Canonical are in place, where appropriate
3. If possible, each category should have it's own introductory text, i.e. https://moz.com/ugc/category/link-building
4. Basically, do everything you can to treat your category pages like actual landing pages worthy of search traffic, including unique content, value, title tags, descriptions, etc.

[EcommerceSite]

Hi Cyrus,

1. I believe that pagination is implemented correctly. Is there anything specific you think I should check?

2. Canonicals are in place.

3. The category pages do not have their own introductory text.

4. We have the title tags and descriptions set.

Wanted to also add that we have the correct schema on the pages as well.

[TVape]

We experienced the same thing and I am fairly certain that we did EVERYTHING right. I just think the algorithms are messed a little. I even made a competitor analysis and found that all the websites that did the https move have experienced a major dip in the past. I cannot tie it to the move date, but it is clearly visible on semrush.

I have a feeling that google endorsed this https move because they need the referer data to make their analytics product work better over time, but while this whole web wide move is happening they accept some collateral damage. I even hired consultants and there is no proof anywhere that https is that "positive ranking signal" Matt Cutts vaguely indicated...but then again he said it is a ranking signal and it might as well be a negative ranking signal by that wording. My hunch so far.

[EcommerceSite]

I have read in so many places that it caused a dip for others as well. I had a really bad experience with a site move once so I had a checklist of everything and double and triple checked it, but it has just been a slow decline.