Changed Domain - Now Loss of traffic?

[socialpatterns]

Hey Guys,

I'm new here, so I can't post in the Search Forum. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

I changed my website to another domain so I could change the branding to appeal to a wider variety of topics. Now traffic has dropped. Here is more info on what went into the change:

Time Frame: Changed about 2 months ago
Did I do it correctly?: Yes, I implemented all 301s, change of address tool, followed Google's steps exactly, etc.
New Domain: It is was an expired domain.

Expired Domain
The expired domain had some links (maybe 50-60 referring domains) and it may have a few lower quality links (maybe 5-10). In this case I define lower quality by calculating trust ratio of all links (majestic CF/TF). Note: the original domain had few links.

CTR Change
Before: 5.1
Now: 5.01

Rankings
For some of the main keywords, the rankings seem about the same. (I have not set up rank tracking for this site yet)

Traffic Change
Before the move: 1462 sessions in a month (33-68 per day)
Now: 970 sessions in a month (20-48 per day)

Its not a huge difference, but it is noticeable.

The only thing that changed was the domain, so is it possible that because there are a few lower quality links, that it would hurt the traffic by that much? Is it possible that a slight CTR change could do this?

Should I try disavowing some of the links? Or should I switch back to the original domain, and if so, how would I do that without bringing over the expired domains link equity back towards the original domain? Or switch to a brand new domain - again how do I go about doing this now?

Should I just give it more time to see if traffic stabilizes?

I've never seen it drop traffic like this when changing a domain. I would love any advice from someone with experience in this area on what I should do next.

Thank you!

 

[Ryuzaki]

Did you lose a word or some relevant phrase out of your old domain name. If so, was the term or phrase related to some of the keywords that dropped?

Like going from "Great 5 Irons .net" to "Golf Clubs in General .com". And you're losing traffic on 5 Iron related terms?

 

[socialpatterns]

Wow you are amazing. I think that's exactly what it was. I didn't even think about that. You caught that issue real quick. Thank you so much!!

Now I guess I need to decide if its better to keep my domain more broad for the inclusion of other topics, or to keep the old domain due to the keyword presence in the domain.

Thank you again, this was really confusing me. I think this is exactly what the issue is after looking at both site's queries in search console.

 

[Darth]

I am kind of surprised that EMDs could still be so powerful though?

 

[socialpatterns]

I am kind of surprised that EMDs could still be so powerful though?

It was actually only a PMD. In my experience EMD's (more so) and even PMDs still have a good deal of power, assuming they have enough content to prevent the wrath of Google's EMD update targeting lower quality EMD sites.

But nevertheless, it still is surprising! And I'm pretty sure this is the case after looking closely at exported query results in search console to compare on both domains, in a similar time range.

_____

Actually, taking a much deeper look at all the exported queries data on both sites, it does appear that other queries that were not apart of the PMD were also negatively affected.

I think what Ryuzaki mentioned is definitely on point, because I do see signs of the keyword in the domain that many aren't even in the report at all on the new domain.

But since I'm seeing a lot of other keywords with worse metrics (& not even showing) on new domain, I also think there is something else going on.

Possibly I need to wait longer or it is due to link quality of expired domain (the new site has a TF 10, CF 21, TR: 0.47). Anything below Trust Ratio of 0.40 could be indication of lower quality / spammy links, yet it's not that low on the new domain.

So I'm still not entirely sure.

One other thing, also looking at CTR for individual kw (rather than the whole), the CTR seemed much higher for many kws on my previous domain name. So that is interesting.

 

[Cash Builder]

I am kind of surprised that EMDs could still be so powerful though?

I sold an EMD site at the start of the year because I thought the game was nearly up for these type of sites.

The site still has all of its rankings and the new owner has not added much content and no new links. It’s actually performing better than when I sold it.

 

[turbin3]

Here's one interesting thing to consider. Now I don't have anything to prove this. It's more of a gut feeling from my experience with a few of my large sites. Throughout your site code, do you use absolute or relative links for internal links?

Think about your site as a book. It's a collection of words. Links are also words. EMDs or PMDs are more specific words. Let's say you use absolute links and change domains. In that case, from pretty much every page you are also losing a volume of keywords from those pages. If you use relative links, you might not have many of those words on most pages to begin with (as hrefs).

Since EMDs and PMDs still usually have some form of value, they may have value in similar ways, within hrefs on a page. Now, I would guess this may not be an issue on smaller sites, but that's a guess. From my experience with much larger sites (100K+ pages, ecommerce, etc.), I do wonder if it may be a factor.

I still haven't made up my mind on that. I also haven't been able to attribute this possible internal link factor in my own migrations. Ryuzaki or someone else may have a better idea, and may even know it to be a non-issue.

 

[socialpatterns]

Since EMDs and PMDs still usually have some form of value, they may have value in similar ways, within hrefs on a page. Now, I would guess this may not be an issue on smaller sites, but that's a guess. From my experience with much larger sites (100K+ pages, ecommerce, etc.), I do wonder if it may be a factor.

That's an interesting point that I've never thought of. I try to use absolute links to prevent any issues, and I use Wordpress, so that's how it links to other pages/posts by default anyways. But, my guess is that the anchor text of internal linking has a much higher influence than the actual URL in the code.

Also another thing is with an EMD/PMD, people will naturally use those keywords when linking to you, since it is essentially your brand name. So that could be another positive benefit of EMD/PMDs.