301 Redirect = Result Not Good

301 redirect less than perfect changeover

[MichaelEng]

A client needed to changed a domain name, due to moving from the UK to the USA and she has a .co.uk domain name, so prospective leads would see the .co.uk and think she was UK based and move on. She offer a localised service.

The co.uk version was on page 1 for her selected phrase, so we started requesting links start going to her new .com website address. Over time the .com website had more links, but the .co.uk was still receiving the positions in the SERP's.

I then felt we needed to use a 301 redirect, to tell Google that the co.uk website is now replaced with the .com version. We used the 301 redirect, and the .co.uk website fell out of the SERP's and was not replaced with the .com version, which is what I expected to happen.
Around the Big Daddy update, the .com website appeared in the SERP's on page 1, for her phrases. We were very happy with the result and felt all warm and fuzzy.
3 days later the positions we had seen had totally evapourated and we are no where to be seen.

I'm thinking this could be the sandbox striking, as we did have an increase in incoming links due to the domain change.

Has anyone experienced this, can anyone give advice?

MSN and Yahoo positions are GREAT, just need Google to play ball.

[g1smd]

Check all these searches to see what is going on:

site:domain.com
site:domain.co.uk
site:domain.com -inurl:www
site:domain.co.uk -inurl:www
site:www.domain.com
site:www.domain.co.uk

[MichaelEng]

Thanks g1smd,

I've done these searches, what do they tell me. The .com version has more results than the .co.uk version in both cases.

site:domain.com
site:domain.co.uk
site:domain.com -inurl:www
site:domain.co.uk -inurl:www

[pmac]

Google just cant seem to handle them.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[g1smd]

They should show you that you have pages at www OR at non-www indexed, but not both. If you have both indexed, then get the 301 redirect from non-www to www added right now.

The results should give a hint about duplicate content problems if you hit the "repeat this search with omitted results included" message after only a small number of pages have been shown. Fix that by making sure that every page has a unique title and a unique meta description, and that they match the on-page content.

If you have a 301 redirect installed from .com to .co.uk or vice-versa, the results should show you that for the redirected domain, many of your entries should be turning to URL-only entries and that signifies that they will probably drop out of the index in a few weeks or so.

For the domain that you have redirected to, that one should have a larger number of pages indexed, the number should be increasing each week, and the vast majority of the results should show a title and snippet. Having lots of URL-only entries, or Supplemental Results, for those, may indicate more problems to come.

[tedster]

...the .com website appeared in the SERP's on page 1, for her phrases. We were very happy with the result and felt all warm and fuzzy. 3 days later the positions we had seen had totally evapourated and we are no where to be seen. I'm thinking this could be the sandbox striking...

Yes, in addition to any no-www or with-www issues, this surely could be the sandbox effect as well. The "evaporation" you describe would fit the scenario. Nevertheless, fix the canonical www problem, it can only help.

[MichaelEng]

Thanks for your feedback, it's appreciated.

I was incorrect in my previous reply, I've checked the search results again, and I'm happy to say that

site:domain.com
results came back with all pages listed, none of them are from supplemental results.

site:domain.co.uk
Only one page displayed, but from 'supplemental results'

site:domain.com -inurl:www
No results, so I'm in the clear there

site:domain.co.uk -inurl:www
Only one page displayed, but from 'supplemental results'

I suppose this is good news, It seems the 301 redirect has done it's job and replaced .co.uk with the .com version.

What next, it seems all links that were going to .co.uk are now going to the .com.

Using the link: on MSN to see IBL's (In Bound Links) the .co.uk now has 18 IBL's, while .com now had 308 IBL's

It used to be 240 IBL's to the .co.uk and 40 IBL's to the .com, but this has been reversed over the past 2 months.
I'm thinking this may have caused the sandbox to catch us. Maybe I'm being a bit impatient and all will return.

All these links are from good sources, no funny stuff. She is a photographer and clients she does work for sometimes put a link to her site, under the photo they use.