Domain transfer destroyed search rankings

rtangle · 01-04-2012, 03:19 AM

True situation:
--

I just bought an ugly old website with a good name for lead gen in our local market. The site had poor content but tons of old inbound links and long-standing excellent rankings on every k/w for a valuable competitive local niche. Dozens of 1st page + several #1 positions. Good memorable name, too.
--

I told the owner I didn't want to risk losing the rankings by having the web hosting change, so he agreed to keep it on his server while I go to work on a site overhaul.
--

We transferred registrant to me. (I added whois privacy)
--

Within hours after paying the cash and transferring Registrant, the rankings dropped into the abyss! Previously #1 rankings are now several pages deep.

Question:
--

Why do you suppose this happened?

My hypothesis:
--

Transferring domain ownership re-sets the site age clock (or cuts time in half)
--

Panda may have passed up the site until domain transfer triggered a re-index under the new rules. I already knew that, "as is", this site design should not rank well under Panda's guidelines.

--

My HOPE! The drop is only temporary and it will bounce back within days without an expensive SEO campaign so that I can finish the redesign and start selling ad space, or generating leads from that organic traffic.

-- My problem:

I bought the site for the steady stream of organic traffic that I could easily convert into high-dollar leads through my own efforts in doing redesign. Conversions from organic traffic alone would have been sufficient to recover the purchase price within a month.
Low ranks = no traffic = no leads = no income

-- No money available to pay for redesign AND SEO.

Options:
-- Do the redesign. Start selling ads valued based upon pre-crash traffic, acknowledging that recovering rankings & traffic may cost 20x more than I can afford without investors.

Ideas? Thoughts?

nicktyler · 01-04-2012, 03:28 AM

That is a strange one. At first I was thinking that he seller might have been in controll of the link profile and pointed it at the site to get a better price ad then when the cash was paid pointed the links at somewhere else.

While that does happen the fact that the rankings dropped so quickly and the seller allowed you to remain on his server implies that he is a bit more trustworthy than that.

What do others think?

WordsofWorth · 01-04-2012, 11:25 AM

Perhaps there was a second domain that really had the rankings that was being 301 redirected to the domain you purchased. When the deal was done, the 301 was removed and the domain with the real power retained the power and rankings, and the domain you paid for was dropped like a stone.

Are any of the websites that are now on the first page for the keywords your domain was ranking for new, or perhaps owned by the same person/hosted on the same server as yours?

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WordsofWorth

Perhaps there was a second domain that really had the rankings that was being 301 redirected to the domain you purchased. When the deal was done, the 301 was removed and the domain with the real power retained the power and rankings, and the domain you paid for was dropped like a stone.

Are any of the websites that are now on the first page for the keywords your domain was ranking for new, or perhaps owned by the same person/hosted on the same server as yours?

That could be worth checking into.

The first page is definitely different. Big national players now took #1 & #2 while another national player's rankings also appear to have fallen. I don't see any new domains in the first page. The deal is somewhat suspicious because, even thought the seller lives here locally, he constantly makes excuses for why he is too busy to call me. I have never spoken directly to him over the phone. Only e-mail.

How can I check links retroactively if I didn't have link tracking running prior to purchasing the domain?

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 06:55 AM

You know what? Until yesterday I hadn't seen real stats from the site. Even so, the stats are quite superficial. It isn't Google Analytics. It's just generic AW Stats showing total uniques & hits. No info on which keywords were getting the traffic, etc. Even still... for this niche it is likely that the conversion rate would be quite high for lead gen. Probably at 10% with what I know about how to get people to pick up the phone and call. The seller never showed me stats. He wasn't tracking them. Basically it was a poorly designed site that didn't convert because even the phone number was dead. He didn't have GA installed. I bought the domain based upon 1) its name... for offline marketing it IS memorable as a trademark, and 2) its organic rankings -- The site was ahead of another that I have been working on for the past 7 months. Based upon the number of unique visitors, and that I could probably get an 8%-10% conversion ratio from unique visitors, the cash flow from the pre-plunge traffic would have been worth around $3,000 per month! I paid $700. Spend $2K on redesign, see rankings improve and expand into more long-tail, and POOF!!! This site's previous rankings were worth at least $5,000/month. That was the hook to get big local partners on-board to make the site be worth more like $50K-$75K per month. Its rankings are now damaged so badly that I expect that the unique visitors count will be around 1% of what they were previously. I might make $50/month from organic. And, that's only AFTER pouring more money into redesign to make the conversions possible. *sigh*. Well... there's always the PPC route.

Gotta keep a level head about this. It's still a good name and idea. Must... persist... must... be... positive!

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 07:06 AM

Ok... I have to be honest with myself about this. The name and rankings were good. The site sucked! I know Panda would crush it! It seems quite possible that changing ownership of the domain could have flagged a MANUAL REVIEW at Google. If someone on the mighty G review team saw that site with their own eyes, it would be stamped as "worthless" and rankings would be sunk down to where they are now. The user experience provided by that site did not deserve the outstanding rankings that it had.

All I can do is fix the site. Do it right. I wish I would have done the site redesign BEFORE we transferred domain ownership.

Maybe there is a lesson in this for all of us. If you're buying "fixer upper" sites that have rankings that are far better than the site really deserves, negotiate to implement a redesign BEFORE transferring ownership of the domain.

Agree? Disagree? Am I jumping to conclusions too hastily? Have others ever seen this happen?

Domainate · 01-05-2012, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WordsofWorth

Perhaps there was a second domain that really had the rankings that was being 301 redirected to the domain you purchased. When the deal was done, the 301 was removed and the domain with the real power retained the power and rankings, and the domain you paid for was dropped like a stone.

Are any of the websites that are now on the first page for the keywords your domain was ranking for new, or perhaps owned by the same person/hosted on the same server as yours?

This would be my inclination for the rankings changing so quickly.

Otherwise, like the OP has just mentioned, perhaps the site was manually reviewed and slapped. I'm not sure a transfer to a different registrar would cause that, but Google constantly comes up with new ways to be able to keep rankings updated and optimized, so it's certainly possible.

Fernando Veloso · 01-05-2012, 01:04 PM

Try to write all that again with no smilies and we'll be able to help you without getting crazy.

lol

drbennymarketing · 01-05-2012, 01:22 PM

I am really glad that I read this post because I was about to make a purchase of an old site and I have changed my mind. I reality we all want it easy and fast, but most of the time there is no such thing.

Be encouraged,

Dr Benny

gs000707 · 01-05-2012, 01:32 PM

If there was a redirection, he should be able to locate it in the hosting panel, too bad, if there was no panel, just FTP, sometimes these DNS transfers, IPs and name servers mess with your head pretty badly.

Also, double check first, who is the partner, you decide to team up with. Internet is a wast and dangerous jungle, pretty much every second opportunity looks tempting, but in the end, 3/4 of it are just big ass scams.

Partnering with someone over the internet might be sort of risky, especially, when it's like you described, one own the domain, the other one hosting, something bad happens, failure, no success, people start blaming each other and that's not really a good start.

Also, I'd directly approach Google, but I hope, there's a reasonable explanation for all this.

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domainate

This would be my inclination for the rankings changing so quickly.

Otherwise, like the OP has just mentioned, perhaps the site was manually reviewed and slapped. I'm not sure a transfer to a different registrar would cause that, but Google constantly comes up with new ways to be able to keep rankings updated and optimized, so it's certainly possible.

This was a transfer of Registrant (ownership)... not registrar.

Plus, I put privacy on it. Could raise another issue. Could Private registrations raise suspicions? Does Private whois get treated differently?

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Try to write all that again with no smilies and we'll be able to help you without getting crazy.

lol

What can I say. The news of discovering the blasted rankings was so disturbing that I resorted to using smilies for comic relief!

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drbennymarketing

I am really glad that I read this post because I was about to make a purchase of an old site and I have changed my mind. I reality we all want it easy and fast, but most of the time there is no such thing.

Be encouraged,

Dr Benny

I am glad that somebody benefited from my post. I don't really know if my assumptions are correct, so don't make brash decisions based upon my ordeal. Do be careful though. Now that I have hindsight on my side, why WOULDN'T Google see a sudden change of site OWNERSHIP as a flag to go check it out?

I just spent the afternoon exploring redesign options. I'm forging ahead with a redesign plan. The SEO guy that I use for client projects is very good for the money. I still have hope. A saving grace for it is that the name sticks in the mind well enough to work through radio, TV, signs, etc.

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domainate

This would be my inclination for the rankings changing so quickly.

Otherwise, like the OP has just mentioned, perhaps the site was manually reviewed and slapped. I'm not sure a transfer to a different registrar would cause that, but Google constantly comes up with new ways to be able to keep rankings updated and optimized, so it's certainly possible.

Hmnm... 301 redirect into another domain that actually had the rankings? The site I bought was the one with the rankings. Nothing on the site has changed one little bit. Not a single file. It is still hosted on the same IP on the sellers' server. The domain ownership was the only thing that has been changed. It is possible that it held its rankings by having an inbound link from a high PR site, and either the seller or one of his partners removed the link. I'm not sure if there is a way to check inbound links from the month before I started tracking the site's rankings. Can that be done?

paulgl · 01-05-2012, 03:31 PM

Some people sure put a lot of blind faith into what google
knows, cares to know, and actually can know. Why some
believe google is this all-knowing old man in the cave has
always been way beyond me.

Like a domain transfer drops ratings? How so?

Domain age has nothing to do with anything and it does
not reset unless it's been taken off the market. But
again, it matters not how old a domain is. That's
crazy thinking, just like a lot of it.

I have no idea why people believe in this voodoo stuff,
maybe you can make a voodoo doll, put the domain on it,
and start sticking it with pins. See what happens. Might
help, right? I call it the "pain trigger" to higher rankings.

Paul

MikeFriedman · 01-05-2012, 03:38 PM

Domains change ownership all the time. Google doesn't just say, "Oh well. **** them. Into the abyss you go."

How long was the site ranked as high as it was? If nothing other than the ownership has changed, my guess is that it never really deserved those rankings to begin with. It could have been blasted with tons and tons of links to temporarily boost it up, sell it, and then watch it drop back down. It could have been a 301-redirect or several 301-redirects.

It could have been a number of things, but just changing ownership would not cause a massive drop. Google is not that stupid. Businesses change ownership. They are not just going to blast a company's website because they sold to a new owner.

rtangle · 01-05-2012, 04:51 PM

The issue is that it didn't deserve the rankings. The site should have been Panda poop. It had the excellent rankings for at least 6 months since I started checking it out. The owner said it had those rankings for at least 3 years. It's a 4 year old site. The guy I bought it from was an SEO and built tons of links into the site when it was new. It ranked highly on Yahoo & Bing, too. He eventually got busy with other projects and changed his line of work altogether. What the site does right is having 1000+ static pages based upon several locations and service categories. What it does wrong is 1) being UGLY, and 2) not having unique content on 99% of its pages. Lots of old inbound links, but they link to the home page instead of the pages within the site. It was the poor design with a high bounce rate that had me most concerned. I figured that since it was ranking so well, Google must have been ignoring it for quite some time. It has never had Google Analytics or Tools installed, either. Maybe that's a factor. I was just hoping that the engines would keep ignoring it until I could apply a proper redesign.

Now I am wondering if the site's links are still intact. The guy had an SEO company. Maybe the guy was getting his links from a big site network and simply disabled all of them.

MikeFriedman · 01-06-2012, 11:04 AM

Have you checked the links to see if they are still there?

Also, Analytics was not installed before, but you did install it now?

rtangle · 01-19-2012, 04:13 AM

GREAT NEWS! The ranking drop only lasted for a couple weeks! Without ever touching the site the rankings jumped exactly back to where they were before I bought the site!

Obvious conclusion:
The act of transferring ownership (registrant) caused the position of the site to drop only for a couple weeks.

Relieved! The site I bought is back to where it's supposed to be -- just in time for a meeting with the people that I am trying to motivate to buy into it. Thank you jeeeezuz!

01-04-2012, 03:28 AM	#2
nicktyler Advanced Warrior Join Date: May 2011 Location: London Posts: 708 Thanks: 8 Thanked 56 Times in 55 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings That is a strange one. At first I was thinking that he seller might have been in controll of the link profile and pointed it at the site to get a better price ad then when the cash was paid pointed the links at somewhere else. While that does happen the fact that the rankings dropped so quickly and the seller allowed you to remain on his server implies that he is a bit more trustworthy than that. What do others think?
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01-04-2012, 11:25 AM	#3
WordsofWorth Active Warrior Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Cheshire, UK Posts: 31 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Social Networking	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Perhaps there was a second domain that really had the rankings that was being 301 redirected to the domain you purchased. When the deal was done, the 301 was removed and the domain with the real power retained the power and rankings, and the domain you paid for was dropped like a stone. Are any of the websites that are now on the first page for the keywords your domain was ranking for new, or perhaps owned by the same person/hosted on the same server as yours?
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01-05-2012, 06:55 AM	#5
rtangle Grokar Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 12 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings You know what? Until yesterday I hadn't seen real stats from the site. Even so, the stats are quite superficial. It isn't Google Analytics. It's just generic AW Stats showing total uniques & hits. No info on which keywords were getting the traffic, etc. Even still... for this niche it is likely that the conversion rate would be quite high for lead gen. Probably at 10% with what I know about how to get people to pick up the phone and call. The seller never showed me stats. He wasn't tracking them. Basically it was a poorly designed site that didn't convert because even the phone number was dead. He didn't have GA installed. I bought the domain based upon 1) its name... for offline marketing it IS memorable as a trademark, and 2) its organic rankings -- The site was ahead of another that I have been working on for the past 7 months. Based upon the number of unique visitors, and that I could probably get an 8%-10% conversion ratio from unique visitors, the cash flow from the pre-plunge traffic would have been worth around $3,000 per month! I paid $700. Spend $2K on redesign, see rankings improve and expand into more long-tail, and POOF!!! This site's previous rankings were worth at least $5,000/month. That was the hook to get big local partners on-board to make the site be worth more like $50K-$75K per month. Its rankings are now damaged so badly that I expect that the unique visitors count will be around 1% of what they were previously. I might make $50/month from organic. And, that's only AFTER pouring more money into redesign to make the conversions possible. sigh. Well... there's always the PPC route. Gotta keep a level head about this. It's still a good name and idea. Must... persist... must... be... positive!

01-05-2012, 07:06 AM	#6
rtangle Grokar Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 12 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Ok... I have to be honest with myself about this. The name and rankings were good. The site sucked! I know Panda would crush it! It seems quite possible that changing ownership of the domain could have flagged a MANUAL REVIEW at Google. If someone on the mighty G review team saw that site with their own eyes, it would be stamped as "worthless" and rankings would be sunk down to where they are now. The user experience provided by that site did not deserve the outstanding rankings that it had. All I can do is fix the site. Do it right. I wish I would have done the site redesign BEFORE we transferred domain ownership. Maybe there is a lesson in this for all of us. If you're buying "fixer upper" sites that have rankings that are far better than the site really deserves, negotiate to implement a redesign BEFORE transferring ownership of the domain. Agree? Disagree? Am I jumping to conclusions too hastily? Have others ever seen this happen?

01-05-2012, 01:04 PM	#8
Fernando Veloso Portuguese Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Good Old Europe Posts: 4,013 Blog Entries: 7 Thanks: 1,660 Thanked 1,053 Times in 705 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Try to write all that again with no smilies and we'll be able to help you without getting crazy. lol
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01-04-2012, 03:19 AM	#1
rtangle Grokar Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 12 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Domain transfer destroyed search rankings True situation: -- I just bought an ugly old website with a good name for lead gen in our local market. The site had poor content but tons of old inbound links and long-standing excellent rankings on every k/w for a valuable competitive local niche. Dozens of 1st page + several #1 positions. Good memorable name, too. -- I told the owner I didn't want to risk losing the rankings by having the web hosting change, so he agreed to keep it on his server while I go to work on a site overhaul. -- We transferred registrant to me. (I added whois privacy) -- Within hours after paying the cash and transferring Registrant, the rankings dropped into the abyss! Previously #1 rankings are now several pages deep. Question: -- Why do you suppose this happened? My hypothesis: -- Transferring domain ownership re-sets the site age clock (or cuts time in half) -- Panda may have passed up the site until domain transfer triggered a re-index under the new rules. I already knew that, "as is", this site design should not rank well under Panda's guidelines. -- My HOPE! The drop is only temporary and it will bounce back within days without an expensive SEO campaign so that I can finish the redesign and start selling ad space, or generating leads from that organic traffic. -- My problem: I bought the site for the steady stream of organic traffic that I could easily convert into high-dollar leads through my own efforts in doing redesign. Conversions from organic traffic alone would have been sufficient to recover the purchase price within a month. Low ranks = no traffic = no leads = no income -- No money available to pay for redesign AND SEO. Options: -- Do the redesign. Start selling ads valued based upon pre-crash traffic, acknowledging that recovering rankings & traffic may cost 20x more than I can afford without investors. Ideas? Thoughts?

01-05-2012, 01:22 PM	#9
drbennymarketing Dr. Benny Morris Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Miami Florida Posts: 7 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Social Networking	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings I am really glad that I read this post because I was about to make a purchase of an old site and I have changed my mind. I reality we all want it easy and fast, but most of the time there is no such thing. Be encouraged, Dr Benny

01-05-2012, 01:32 PM	#10
gs000707 Online-Opportunities Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Central Europe Posts: 45 Thanks: 2 Thanked 8 Times in 6 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings If there was a redirection, he should be able to locate it in the hosting panel, too bad, if there was no panel, just FTP, sometimes these DNS transfers, IPs and name servers mess with your head pretty badly. Also, double check first, who is the partner, you decide to team up with. Internet is a wast and dangerous jungle, pretty much every second opportunity looks tempting, but in the end, 3/4 of it are just big ass scams. Partnering with someone over the internet might be sort of risky, especially, when it's like you described, one own the domain, the other one hosting, something bad happens, failure, no success, people start blaming each other and that's not really a good start. Also, I'd directly approach Google, but I hope, there's a reasonable explanation for all this.
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01-05-2012, 03:31 PM	#15
paulgl Plundering the Web War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: , , . Posts: 4,851 Thanks: 804 Thanked 1,200 Times in 887 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Some people sure put a lot of blind faith into what google knows, cares to know, and actually can know. Why some believe google is this all-knowing old man in the cave has always been way beyond me. Like a domain transfer drops ratings? How so? Domain age has nothing to do with anything and it does not reset unless it's been taken off the market. But again, it matters not how old a domain is. That's crazy thinking, just like a lot of it. I have no idea why people believe in this voodoo stuff, maybe you can make a voodoo doll, put the domain on it, and start sticking it with pins. See what happens. Might help, right? I call it the "pain trigger" to higher rankings. Paul
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01-05-2012, 03:38 PM	#16
MikeFriedman Don't Drink and SEO War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: York, PA Posts: 2,009 Thanks: 207 Thanked 551 Times in 393 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Domains change ownership all the time. Google doesn't just say, "Oh well. **** them. Into the abyss you go." How long was the site ranked as high as it was? If nothing other than the ownership has changed, my guess is that it never really deserved those rankings to begin with. It could have been blasted with tons and tons of links to temporarily boost it up, sell it, and then watch it drop back down. It could have been a 301-redirect or several 301-redirects. It could have been a number of things, but just changing ownership would not cause a massive drop. Google is not that stupid. Businesses change ownership. They are not just going to blast a company's website because they sold to a new owner.
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01-05-2012, 04:51 PM	#17
rtangle Grokar Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 12 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings The issue is that it didn't deserve the rankings. The site should have been Panda poop. It had the excellent rankings for at least 6 months since I started checking it out. The owner said it had those rankings for at least 3 years. It's a 4 year old site. The guy I bought it from was an SEO and built tons of links into the site when it was new. It ranked highly on Yahoo & Bing, too. He eventually got busy with other projects and changed his line of work altogether. What the site does right is having 1000+ static pages based upon several locations and service categories. What it does wrong is 1) being UGLY, and 2) not having unique content on 99% of its pages. Lots of old inbound links, but they link to the home page instead of the pages within the site. It was the poor design with a high bounce rate that had me most concerned. I figured that since it was ranking so well, Google must have been ignoring it for quite some time. It has never had Google Analytics or Tools installed, either. Maybe that's a factor. I was just hoping that the engines would keep ignoring it until I could apply a proper redesign. Now I am wondering if the site's links are still intact. The guy had an SEO company. Maybe the guy was getting his links from a big site network and simply disabled all of them.

01-06-2012, 11:04 AM	#18
MikeFriedman Don't Drink and SEO War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: York, PA Posts: 2,009 Thanks: 207 Thanked 551 Times in 393 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings Have you checked the links to see if they are still there? Also, Analytics was not installed before, but you did install it now?
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01-19-2012, 04:13 AM	#19
rtangle Grokar Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 12 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Domain transfer destroyed search rankings GREAT NEWS! The ranking drop only lasted for a couple weeks! Without ever touching the site the rankings jumped exactly back to where they were before I bought the site! Obvious conclusion: The act of transferring ownership (registrant) caused the position of the site to drop only for a couple weeks. Relieved! The site I bought is back to where it's supposed to be -- just in time for a meeting with the people that I am trying to motivate to buy into it. Thank you jeeeezuz!