My site has lost 90% of its traffic since January. Why?

[gunpas]

Hey,

I’m not sure whats going on here.


But my site launched with a local .se domain which was active for 1 year. After some time I registered a .com domain and re-directed all traffic from my .se domain to the .com domain with a 301 redirect. The re-direct from .se to .com was active for 6 months. I removed the re-direct from my .se domain to my .com domain for 3 weeks starting from end of January. I then saw a decrease in organic traffic to my .com domain.


I thought that the cause was the removal of my re-direct from my .se domain so I decided to put back the Re-direct from my .se domain to .com domain in the beginning of February. but I have not regained the authority or traffic yet. Whats going on? Did i damage my site permanently when i removed my re-direct from my.se domain to my .com domain during 3 weeks? it is not blackout, jus to be sure?


What can I do?


I have checked my analytics, search console and backlinks history and found some moderately spammy backlinks which my site gained in January. I disavowed them 2 weeks ago. But no regain of traffic by doing that either. Which I thought.


The only reason I can come up with now is that my page speed is slow and the performance of my site is poor on mobile. But its hard to believe that this can have caused 90% organic drop for my website? Unless, Google did an update in January or February that addressed this issue.


I also found over 404 not found error pages on my site which has been there for a while. But this can’t be the reason for the 90% traffic drop?

[aristotle]

Google's algorithm might be wondering why you keep changing the domains back and forth. So it might want to wait for a while to see if you change it again.

Most likely the algorithm generally prefers sites that are stable. So your best strategy might be to keep everything the same for now and hope that the algorithm eventually gains more confidence in your site's stability.

[tangor]

@gunpas ... Welcome to the forum!

First, redirects should live forever. Period. (sad to say, but pretty much true)

Second you changes are too quick for g to catch up.

You will NEVER see real time positives from g ... but can always expect to see NEGATIVES as the se errs on the side of caution.

As that fellow discovered when in a hole: STOP DIGGING!

Fix any OBVIOUS errors in coding/redirects, etc, then STOP messing with it. Go back to producing content and ordinary site management.

SERIOUSLY ... STOP and take a breath (for about 3 months).

[not2easy]

Hi gunpas and Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

my site launched with a local .se domain which was active for 1 year. After some time I registered a .com domain and re-directed all traffic from my .se domain to the .com domain with a 301 redirect. The re-direct from .se to .com was active for 6 months. I removed the re-direct from my .se domain to my .com domain for 3 weeks starting from end of January. I then saw a decrease in organic traffic to my .com domain.

A few more details would help: The new domain has the same content as the old domain? Each 'old' page redirects to its new equivalent page?

If you built up traffic for a year at a domain and then started a new domain, redirecting the old URLs to the new URLs, that needs to stay in place. If everything was wholesale redirected to the new home page, that is not really redirecting to the page the visitor requested. It makes a difference if the new domain has the same content as the old and how the re-directing of all traffic from the .se domain to the .com domain was handled. Is the same content still on the old domain or is there a 301 for each page that was indexed so that visitors to the old domain land on the equivalent new page on the new domain?

[gunpas]

Hey,

old is the same as new, just new domain. each page redirects with a 301 to the new one.

[not2easy]

Sounds like it was well done, just shouldn't have turned off the redirects. They need to stay in place.

[gunpas]

so the damage is done permanently now and the traffic and rankings won't return? what to do?

[not2easy]

Turning the redirects back on might help, can't hurt. It takes a long time for Google to completely understand a move like that without the redirects. If you have not yet filed a 'change of address' at GSC you should look into that as well.

[tangor]

^What not2easy said. Reality is g is glacial on some things and lightning quick on the ones we don't want them to take seriously. :)

MEANWHILE, you will (or should) continue control of the old domain FOREVER and keep your redirects in place. After about 10 YEARS you might let it go ... but if this your bread and butter, I would keep it active until the Sun goes cold.