Domain change de-lists high ranking pages?

[jamiejohnson37]

I recently launched a new site, within 2 weeks all 5 pages were ranking in positions #5 - #11 on Google.

www.cityname-widget-manufacture-name.com

The domain and ranking keywords were a bit "long tail" so I created a more targeted domain name to capture larger search volume, and changed the page titles and minimal site content to match the new domain.

www.cityname-specific-widget.com

Its been about 6 weeks and all pages but one (the contact page) have been delisted.

I assume Google is viewing the new domain as having "duplicate content" from the old domain? Would this be correct?

If so, will these pages (originally indexed under the old domain) resurface? OR Can I create new versions of these pages (different page names and content) and they will rise again?

Thanks,

Jamie

[tedster]

I see a couple of possibilities here. One of those is that your original good rankings were part of the temporary testing that I've called the "honeymoon period." In other words, those rankings could well have disappeared even without the domain name change.

Second possibility - an early domain name, especially from one "hyphenated exact match" to another instead of a brand-type domain, is not a strong quality signal at all. So if you want to get this show on the road, I'd say you need to work hard on the new domain and get it sending out every kind of quality signal you can. I would NOT revert to the first domain name. That's likely to make things worse.

[jamiejohnson37]

Hi Tedster, thanks for the quick reply.

To clarify the domains dont have hyphens, I just added to separate the keywords for reading clarity. They are more like:

www.CityCompanyName.com (company name has long tail keywords)

www.CityTypeOfIndustry.com (more specifically targeted keywords in url)

I can understand a few week drop in rankings as the new changes get re-indexed, but its been almost 2 months now and none of the new pages are indexed at all?

I just resubmitted via Google Webmaster Tools, but if they were dropped for a specific reason that I didnt address, I'm concerned Google wont re-index?

Thanks,
J

[tedster]

Well, don't borrow trouble. Many people are now getting pretty specific replies.

if they were dropped for a specific reason that I didnt address, I'm concerned Google wont re-index?

What kind of things did you feel that you needed to fix?

[Andem]

First off-topic:

>> www.cityname-widget-manufacture-name.com

It seems that WebmasterWorld has become some kind of low-quality-webmaster paradise. No offense to the original poster, but are most of WebmasterWorld's current members simply resellers of various products without actually providing quality content to users? Gosh, it seems that way when every other post in the Google forum states that "I changed the manufacturer's description to be Panda-friendly, why haven't I recovered?".

Hello? 100,000 pageviews per day with copied content and 6 ads on a page with 50-150 words? Well.... *sigh* No wonder the results have gone down the drain.

But ontopic:

>> The domain and ranking keywords were a bit "long tail" so I created a more targeted domain name to capture larger search volume, and changed the page titles and minimal site content to match the new domain.

So you created domain names to look like you provided a service, you minimized site content to match what the original domain name inferred your site was about and now you can't figure out why you don't rank for something you don't actually provide? Hrmmm.. I can't figure out why you wouldn't be ranking for such a search term. What a sec....... Not only are you the reason why Panda actually exists and why it penalized honest webmasters, but that type of web site actually pollutes the web.

Here's some advice: Provide some real content that people can use without the tricks of subdomains, keyword domains and spam.

[jamiejohnson37]

To answer your misguided assumptions Andem, I am not a "reseller of a product without quality content", actually it is a local doctors office here in Los Angeles.

The first, old URL was doctor's business name and city, the second new URL was the city and the doctor's area of practice (IE: more targeted keywords).

I just used the standard "widget" domain structure to comply with WebmasterWorld's super ultra paranoid policy on self promotion.

It is ironic that you took the time to write four paragraphs to rant about "low quality web masters" when you have yet to provide an intelligible, knowledgeable or helpful answer to a very simple Google indexing issue. All while hailing the title "junior member".

And WebmasterWorld wants $149 a year for this?

Again, if anyone has an intelligent answer to this most basic question, I'd love to hear it.

* Will Google eventually re-index the pages under the new URL?
* If not, will re-creating new versions of the old pages get them re-indexed?

Thanks,

Jamie

[smithaa02]

If you do a whois lookup on both domain names what is their domain age?

Did you 301 all the old urls to your new home page? Or all your old urls to their corresponding new urls (page > page)?

Does the old domain/url still bring up the same content?

Did you change any of the file names or directory names?

I think it is funny that because so many of us use 'widgets' as a examples here that everybody assumes we are affiliates or resellers or even shopping cart sites which is frequently absolutely not the case (widgets just make nice examples).

[scooterdude]

I suspect that What tedster said in his first post addresses most of your issues

Plus
( I dunno if this below will help, but here goes)

does site:mydomainname.com return nothing ?

Has anyone linked to the new domain?

By changing URL to less specific broader keywords, you've also decided to compete directly against significantly more influential sites.

your chances of ranking there probably go from slim to none,for some time anyway

IMHO


btw, what wrong with being an affiliate :)

[jamiejohnson37]

Issue Solved:

I "fetched pages as Google Bot" with the Google Webmaster Tools, and did a force re-index when they came up. They appear to be indexing now (did this yesterday FYI).

In the original configuration I had both domains (old and new) pointing to the same pages, but saw that rank was being affected because (I assume) Google was seeing the new url as have dupe content. So I redirected the old url to a blank redirect page.

I hope this shifting around doesnt still cause Google to see the new site as dupe content? I'm hoping the old domain pages will no longer cache and I'll be back on a level playing field.

Thanks all,

jamie

[smithaa02]

Google doesn't like double dipping when it comes to domains...

Would strongly recommend 301'ing your old pages to your new pages.

If your directory/page names changed significantly then you might be better off doing a generic catch-all 301 from your old site to your new site, but direct page-to-page 301's are best.

[jamiejohnson37]

Thanks smithaaa02, I figured this was the case.

The "old" domain was only a few weeks old, so not many inbound links or anything lost by redirecting the "old" domain to a new blank page, and hosting the "old" domain pages under the new domain.

Would you still recommend 301'ing the old domain even though the pages are no longer hosted there?

Thanks,
J

[smithaa02]

Yes...because google indexed your 'old site' and these pages were ranking. If I was in your shoes I would setup a .htaccess redirect rule on your old site ASAP.

Also would recommend signing up for google webmaster tools, because they have a trick that lets you tell google that you moved the site to a new domain:

[google.com...]

[jamiejohnson37]

sounds good. thanks.