Website transfers to new hosting company and is dropped by Google

[CarmaCreative]

Hello all,

I have recently made a somewhat disastrous move to advise a client to switch hosting provider. It has caused no end of problems with FTP, emails, accounts and so on.

But perhaps the biggest problem is when the site transferred to the new hosting company any trace of a Google Pagerank disappeared. The website has been online for many years and as such the owner is very unhappy that he is now on page 2, instead of his old position of page 1.

Does anyone have experience of this and why it has been dropped instantly from Google?

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Big Pete]

I am not sure but i bet its treating it as a new website so its lost its history , it may come back up in time ..
how long ago was it switched ..

I had a site was number 1 and 2 in google suddenly dissapeared in googles eyes after i did a skin colour change and changed a few pages.. but it came back 2 weeks later higher and stronger .

so dont panic yet maybe

 

[fisicx]

This shouldn't happen. Google doesn't care too much where your site is hosted as long as it relevant to the domain. There can be a 24/28 hour delay while all the DNS is upadated but this shouldn't affect your ranking.

It's more likely to be some unrelated issue such as inaccessible pages or a dodgy inbound or simply that google no longer thinks the site deserves to be on page one.

 

[los_design]

This shouldn't happen. Google doesn't care too much where your site is hosted as long as it relevant to the domain. There can be a 24/28 hour delay while all the DNS is upadated but this shouldn't affect your ranking.

It's more likely to be some unrelated issue such as inaccessible pages or a dodgy inbound or simply that google no longer thinks the site deserves to be on page one.

I am with you on this one. The movement may not be the cause here.

In addition to the above, did he/you run an IP C block check to see who you are now living with on the new server?

Also, I recently had a client that was 'number 1 in the world' for a chosen phrases and under no circumstances was I to lose this ranking.

However, I pointed out that although they were number 1, the phrase was NEVER searched for so no loss...and I started concentrating on searches that were used. Dunno if this applies to your scenario but thought I would mention it just in case...

HTH

 

[awebapart.com]

How was the migration handled? Was there an overlap period where the site was available on both old server and new server? (in case google was still checking with the old DNS information)

What about inbound links? Have you moved to a server which also hosts the other websites that are providing important inbound links.

Is there anything else in the new server configuration, different versions of php, different versions of mysql, etc, which might be causing the website to not run exactly as it did before?

Have you taken off any robots.txt disallow you might have originally had in place on the new server to prevent premature indexing before it went live?

 

you have not changed the domain or any page URL's.?

Earl

 

[los_design]

Oh yeah, and is the site structure identical to before the change

 

[OldWelshGuy]

unless you followed proper procedure google will hit you.
1. upload the new docs to hosting
2. change dns
3. leave old site in place
4. wait until spiders stop visiting old address before removing site.

google doesn't visit sites by domain, it visits via ip address and folder structure. it displays urls to make life easier. Googlebot will therefore be visiting the old servers until the changes propagate around its own datacentres.

It could however have nothing to do with this and could be something else, but if goog has been getting 404 errors on your old hosting, then that will be enough to give you a trustrank hit.

 

[WebU]

You've perhaps already done this, but it's worth double-checking that no internal links have been broken during the move. A quick way to check is to get the free Xenu Link Sleuth tool.

 

[CarmaCreative]

Thanks for the quick replies guys.

The website was first online about 4 years ago and was FTP'd to new hosting space about 2 weeks ago

Not sure what IP C Block is...

There were 3 main keyword phrases which all seemed to be picking up traffic previously

There seemed to be no overlap, just completely taken off and then uploaded again

Inbound links are very low, to be honest we've been in a privileged position for a while for very low SEO effort, that will have to change now!

These are straight HTML pages, no domain name or page name changes either.

Thanks
Phil

 

[CarmaCreative]

OldWelshGuy - the order may have become unordered. How do I check about leaving the old site in place / 404 errors on old hosting?

WebU - Internal links seem to be fine

 

[OldWelshGuy]

can't 404 as they are the same page and it will cause an infinite loop. If you took it down immediately, then that is the issue most likely. give it a few weeks. Here are some things to do.

run a link report to ensure there are no broken links internal and external.
check robots.txt make sure there is no blocking
check HTACCESS to ensure there is no blocking
check cache date of pages in google to see when last visited

do the above then report back

 

[Ali-v-8]

when you changed server, who did you change it too? Was server dedicated?
where is the website now hosted?
Is it still in UK?
Go to www.yougetsignal.com do reverse IP check see if your server is flagged for any bad content.

 

[CarmaCreative]

OldWelshGuy - I wouldn't know where to start with any of these things lol.

I am suggesting a number of SEO tactics to my customer, with inbound links being King, I don't think he has attempted this before, so should help out a fair bit.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

as Ali has said, the geo location might have been affected (if it isn't a co.uk domain.) even if it is server can still screw you over.

What was the reason for the move in the first place?

 

[Annoying Donkey]

404 errors will show in your stats. Just 301 redirect to appropriate page.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

404 errors will show in your stats. Just 301 redirect to appropriate page.

301 is not an option as you would be redirecting a page to itself. nothing has changed in the site strutcure etc, all urls are the same, it is just the IP addresses that have altered due to server move.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Yes OWG is right you cant 301 redirect to the same page it will cause an infinity loop.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I think maybe I've misunderstood what the issue is

 

[Ali-v-8]

Were you on about the 301 from host copy to web copy.
If server has been changed these will need to be reinstated.

I think maybe I've misunderstood what the issue is

 

[CarmaCreative]

It's a .co.uk domain.

To be honest a big mistake from my point of view. I don't design that many websites and I have always arranged hosting and domain from the off.

I was trying to save customer money in this case, plus the IT guy who previously registered the domain and hosting had gone out of business, so we had the hassle of getting all the account info, which was a pain in the arse in itself...

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Were you on about the 301 from host copy to web copy.
If server has been changed these will need to be reinstated.

No I thought the OP was getting 404s on the new site, from redundant urls. Comes from reading too quickly...

 

[Ali-v-8]

Thanks for letting me look. There is no real mystery as top why you aren't on page one.

1) title way too long
2) no h1
3) extended url
4) 301 redirect.
5) no internal links
6) no external links


Can you be honest, who did the SEO on the website?
If this website has been optimised i am a monkey Uncle?
Hosting is not the issue, its the site itself.