Your new site went live, everyone was pleased, and then the traffic started sliding. Migration traffic recovery finds out exactly what went wrong, fixes it in order of impact, and tracks the recovery week by week. The sooner it starts, the more straightforward it usually is.
Recovery starts with an honest diagnosis. Plenty of traffic drops are a shrinking market rather than anything you did.
What migration traffic recovery is
Migration traffic recovery is the diagnosis and repair of search visibility lost after a website change: a new site, a platform move, a redesign or a domain change. It compares what Google saw before and after the change, identifies the causes, fixes them in priority order and monitors Search Console until rankings and clicks settle.
Who it’s for
This is for businesses that have launched a new site or made major changes and are now seeing:
- clicks and impressions falling in Search Console since launch
- rising 404 errors or pages dropping out of the index
- old URLs still appearing in Google weeks after launch
- enquiries or sales from search falling, with no clear explanation from the developer or agency
The usual causes
| Cause | How it shows up |
|---|---|
| Missing or wrong redirects | 404s rising, old URLs showing errors, traffic to key pages collapsing |
| Redirect chains and loops | Slow crawling and signals not passing to the new pages |
| Staging settings left on | A noindex tag or robots.txt block, and pages dropping out of Google quickly |
| Content lost in new templates | Pages still indexed but ranking lower, with less text or missing headings |
| Titles and descriptions reset | Clicks falling even where positions held |
| Internal links pointing at old URLs | Crawling through redirects and weaker signals to new pages |
| Canonicals pointing to the wrong place | Pages excluded as duplicates |
| Sitemaps missing or outdated | Slow discovery of new URLs |
How the recovery runs
- Compare before and after. Search Console performance for matching periods before and after launch, by page and search, to find exactly which pages and searches lost out.
- Crawl the new site. Check redirects, status codes, canonicals, indexing settings, internal links and sitemaps.
- Match old to new. Build or repair the redirect map using old URLs from Search Console, analytics, backlinks and any archived copy of the old site.
- Prioritise. Fix the causes affecting the highest-value pages first.
- Fix. Make the changes directly where access is agreed, or write developer briefs one issue at a time.
- Track. Check Search Console weekly, request recrawls where it helps, and report until traffic settles.
What you get
- A diagnosis report explaining what went wrong, in plain English, with the evidence
- A prioritised fix list with developer-ready briefs
- A repaired redirect map
- Weekly recovery tracking and a summary once things settle
Sample finding
ISSUE: 312 old category URLs return 404 errors. Between them they earned most of the site’s organic clicks before launch. CAUSE: The redirect map covered products but not categories. ACTION: Redirect each old category URL to its matching new collection, then update internal links to point directly to the new URLs. EXPECTED: Recovery once Google recrawls the old URLs, tracked weekly in Search Console.
The example above is illustrative. For a real recovery, condoms.uk had been declining for around a year, and over six months its average position improved from 9.8 to 8.7 as its key guides regained clicks.
Limitations
Not all losses come back fully. Technical causes such as missing redirects or an accidental noindex usually recover once fixed. If valuable content was removed, or competitors took the positions while the site was struggling, recovery needs new work, and the diagnosis will say so honestly. Seasonal changes and Google updates are also checked, so a coincidence isn’t mistaken for the cause.
What this won’t solve
If the drop turns out not to be caused by the migration, such as a Google update or a seasonal fall, the recovery plan becomes an SEO plan, covered by a Search Console audit or SEO strategy. If you haven’t launched yet, the cheaper route is getting it right first with redesigns and relaunches or the relevant migration service.
Talk to the person doing the work
There is no account manager here and no team to be handed to. If you get in touch, it is me who reads it, me who looks at your site, and me who does the work if we go ahead.
Get in touch, or start with a free assessment.
Engagement and price
There are no list prices here, and that is deliberate. What a piece of work costs depends on the state of the site, how much of it there is and what you actually need, none of which I know before looking at it.
So it starts with a free analysis. I look at your site, your Search Console and who you are really competing with, then come back with what I would do first and what it would cost to do. No obligation attached, and if the honest answer is that you do not need me yet, I will say so.
How the work gets done
The before and after comparison runs through the Search Console audit tool, the crawl through the site audit system, and every fix is reviewed by me before it’s briefed. This service is part of site migrations. For more, why sites lose traffic after a migration explains the causes in depth, and the site migration checklist covers what should have happened.
FAQ
Why did my traffic drop after a new website?
Usually because old URLs stopped working or redirect to the wrong pages, content or metadata was lost, internal links still point at old addresses, or staging settings such as noindex went live. Search Console’s page indexing and performance reports normally show which, within days of launch.
How long does it take to recover traffic after a failed migration?
It depends on what went wrong and how quickly it’s fixed. Missing redirects fixed within days often recover quickly once Google recrawls the pages. Problems left for months take longer, because Google has already dropped or replaced the old pages. Recovery is tracked weekly until it settles.
Can lost rankings always be recovered?
Not always fully. If the cause was technical, such as missing redirects or an accidental noindex, rankings usually return once it’s fixed. If valuable content was removed, or competitors improved while the site was struggling, recovery takes new work. The diagnosis shows which situation you’re in.
Traffic dropped after launch?
Get in touch with your launch date and what’s changed, or message me on WhatsApp if it’s urgent.