Move WP Websites To New Host And Lose Lots Of Ranking

Are the sites on the new host using the same exact URLs, and the exact URL structure? (ie, yoursite.com/page1 is still located at the exact same URL after the move?)

Also, are you saying your sites on the OLD host are still live, and showing in Google for the same content but with a different URL?

Just need to clarify, because these are important points. If only the host is the same, and there aren't multiple URLs with the same content, that shouldn't be an issue.

If they ARE located at a different URL now, then you need to first 301 redirect all of the old pages (and the home page) to the new URL, and add rel=canonical tags to the new page to alert Google that these pages are one in the same and not duplicated. Also, you should use the change of address tool in Google Webmaster Tools to alert them of the change.

Please clarify a bit, if you can, and we can help more!

Unless you moved the sites to a different host and domain names at the same time, there is no way your site will exist on your former host and your current host regardless of whether you deleted the database files or not.

Did you add all your sites to the same webmaster tools account? Are there any 'manual action' messages in webmaster tools? Were your sites promoted with blackhat techniques?

Answering yes to any of the questions above will reveal one of the potential reasons why your sites tanked.

Duplicates are impossible. You changed the DNS.

The problem is probably your new host. Are you using shared hosting? If you are, the IP address might be on a blacklist or associated with problem domains.

I advise anyone with a WP site to pay the extra and choose wp engine as your hosts. Not only do they provide easy to follow learning material, if you get stuck they will do it for you.....they are all experts in WP

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coincidence. correlation does not equal causation. look for other reasons.

that can not be happen unless if you used new domain with new host or maybe your new host if very slow.

Ok thanks really appreciate that ! i will check for other reasons

Hi,

You say above that your old hosting company still has the files there, but since you moved the DNS, that the old site isn't working. But, can't the old site still be access via the default URL path that your old hosting company gave you?

When I point DNS at my hosting site, I have to "map" the purchased domain that have to the "local" (local to the hosting company) domain that they gave me. If that old hosting company URL is still there, couldn't those pages get crawled by search engines and possibly create what looks like duplicate content?

This doesn't make sense if only some of your moved sites tanked (which apparently happened). But, I wanted to mention this in case your other site just haven't tanked yet because they were crawled at different times.

The other possibility is that Google just changed. I have a site I moved from a free hosting site to a pay hosting site (my reading said I needed to do that to be approved for AdSense). I've really regretted the move. Before the move several of my keywords were starting to rank after about 2 1/2 months. After the move (I also changed domain), my new site started to rank like the old site, but then tanked like yours and has stayed down for almost three months now. I only did 301 redirects because Google won't let me tell them about a site move if it was coming from a subdomain (which my free hosting had me under).

I have read on other sites that Google changes are just making it harder to rank. Like instead of 2-3 months, it's more like 6-8 months. I don't think that should be your case. But, if your sites are too new, perhaps the Google changes have pushed you down for newness. Just a thought?

Regards,
Jaggerware