Google’s John Mueller stated Thursday that website domain and address changes can take more than four months to fully complete within Google’s indexing systems, offering advice to site owners.
Mueller’s comments followed a Reddit report from a site owner whose successful domain migration was reverted by Google after four months, leading to the new domain being deindexed and the old one restored.
The site owner reported a significant drop in traffic for their new domain, from 5,000 impressions per day to 20 impressions per week, after the reversion.
Mueller, a senior webmaster trends analyst at Google, indicated that such prolonged issues often stem from overlooked technical details during the migration process.
He advised site owners to set up a change of address in Google Search Console for both the WWW and non-WWW versions of their domain to ensure a comprehensive migration.
Potential factors contributing to migration problems include the use of absolute URLs in internal links, incorrect redirect types, issues with SSL certificates for HTTPS forwarding, and chained redirects, according to Google.
Other common oversights include changes in the navigational structure of the site and failing to update the XML sitemap to reflect the new domain, which can confuse search engines.
Canonicalization issues, where Google must choose a preferred domain or URL for indexing among multiple options, can also complicate and prolong migration efforts, Mueller explained.
The process requires careful attention to detail to avoid the search engine reverting changes or failing to fully transfer indexing signals, Google representatives have previously stated.
Tools like Screaming Frog can assist in identifying potential issues such as broken links or incorrect redirects before and after a migration, industry experts have noted.
Ensuring all technical aspects are correctly configured is essential for a smooth transition and to prevent significant drops in search visibility, Mueller said.
Source: Search Engine Journal
