Companies change web site domains for a lot of causes — rebranding, acquisition, product adjustments, and extra. Whereas it’s usually obligatory, a brand new area reduces natural search visitors by upwards of 30% in my expertise.

Much like a brand new URL construction, area adjustments require 301 redirects, which leak fairness. I’ve seen rankings slip for months afterward. If the decline persists, an in depth audit may assist.

Listed below are my go-to instruments for domain-change audits.

Google Search Console

Step one is to maintain the deserted area verified inside Search Console to entry historic rating and click on knowledge.

Subsequent, after verifying the possession of your new area, notify Google of the change by way of Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” software at Settings > Change of deal with.

Notify Google of the brand new area by way of Search Console’s “Change of Deal with” software. Click on picture to enlarge.

Search Console can establish which pages or folders misplaced essentially the most visitors from the transfer. For this, open the Efficiency > Pages experiences for the previous and new domains (every in separate tabs). By default, each URL lists are sorted by the variety of natural clicks, making it simple to match the top-performing pages.

Don’t delay the analysis, as Search Console exhibits solely 16 months of knowledge. I usually entry the report two, three, and 4 months afterward to observe shifts.

It’s a great signal if no sections, classes, or URLs decline greater than others — the transfer seemingly produced no structural issues.

If some areas slipped greater than others, flip to the Wayback Machine.

Wayback Machine

Area adjustments steadily embody altering the positioning construction, particularly with acquisitions or product variations. Wayback Machine helps establish which structural adjustments lowered visitors.

Having famous in Search Console the URLs with materials drops, examine archived variations of these pages in Wayback Machine to the brand new ones, guaranteeing:

• The principle navigation contains the URLs as prominently because the earlier area,
• The URLs are interlinked all through the positioning — in associated merchandise, guides, sidebar widgets, footers, and so forth.

Semrush

A loss in hyperlink fairness from the previous web site to the brand new may account for the visitors decline. Semrush might help pinpoint the loss.

To begin, run each domains by way of the software’s main evaluation bar. Then proceed to Backlink Analytics > Listed Pages and test the field “Damaged hyperlinks.” This report for each websites will record the pages which have damaged backlinks and return 404 or 410 errors.

Semrush’s “Damaged hyperlinks” report lists the pages that return 404 or 410 errors. Click on picture to enlarge.

Screaming Frog

Area adjustments usually produce sudden structural glitches. Therefore it’s crucial to run the brand new web site by way of an online crawler akin to Screaming Frog, JetOctopus, or comparable.

Most crawlers enable restricted entry free of charge. Screaming Frog, for instance, crawls 500 pages with out cost. Past that, the paid model is $259 per yr. It features a crawl-compare characteristic, helpful for contrasting crawls of the previous web site and the brand new.

When crawling a web site, search for redirect chains. These entice exterior and inside hyperlink fairness and lengthen the crawl time. Each might trigger visitors declines.