Persistent Decline in Organic and Total Traffic Following Website Redesign
There has been a significant decrease in website traffic since the redesign was launched on December 10, 2024, and this decline continues to persist. Approximately 500% of traffic has been lost.
While redirects have been implemented to ensure proper URLs with 200 or 301 status codes, there is a concern that there may be an issue on the DNS side.
All variations of redirects send traffic to “https://sitename.com” (without www). Sitemaps, including primary, pages, and posts, have been uploaded to all versions of the website on Google Search Console (GSC), such as http-www, https-www, http+www, and https+www, all of which return a status code of 200.
Prior to the site redesign, all pages were ranking well and generating an average of 120 sessions per month. Keywords were ranking high in search engine results pages (SERPs) with multiple AI snippets.
However, approximately 6.3k pages are not indexed due to being blocked by robots.txt as a result of referral HubSpot (?__htsc) parameters attached to outbound marketing efforts. It is currently not possible to exclude these pages.
2 responses to “Organic traffic plummeted after redesign, no recovery after 3 months.”
There are a few potential reasons that could be contributing to the significant drop in organic traffic after a website redesign, as well as the continued lack of recovery even three months post-launch.
Technical Issues: You mentioned that you suspect there may be an issue on the DNS side of things. It’s crucial to ensure that all technical aspects of the website are functioning properly. Check for any DNS configuration errors, server issues, or website loading speed problems that may be hindering the ability of search engines to properly crawl and index your site.
Redirects: While you mentioned that redirects are in place with proper 200 or 301 status codes, it’s possible that there could be errors or issues with the redirect setup. Ensure that all old URLs are redirecting to the correct corresponding new URLs, and that there are no chains or loops of redirects that could be confusing search engines.
Sitemap Submission: It’s great that you have uploaded your sitemaps to all versions of the website on Google Search Console. However, it’s important to regularly check for any errors or issues that may be affecting the indexing of your pages. Make sure that all pages you want indexed are included in the sitemaps and that there are no issues with the structure or content of the sitemaps themselves.
Indexed Pages: The fact that over 6.3k pages are not indexed due to being blocked on robots.txt is significant. While it’s important to block specific pages that you don’t want indexed, make sure that you are not inadvertently blocking important content that should be indexed. Consider revisiting your robots.txt file and ensuring that only the necessary pages are being excluded.
HubSpot Parameters: The presence of HubSpot parameters attached to your outbound marketing efforts could be impacting the indexing of your pages. Consider working with your marketing team to find a solution that allows for the exclusion of these parameters without impacting the overall performance of your website.
In addition to these technical considerations, it’s also important to evaluate the overall quality of your website post-redesign. Make sure that the user experience, content quality, and overall SEO optimization are up to par. Consider conducting a thorough audit of your website to identify any potential issues and work on rectifying them to help improve your organic traffic over time. Additionally, monitoring your website’s performance in Google Analytics and Search Console can provide valuable insights into the impact of the redesign and help guide future optimization efforts.
It’s unfortunate to hear about the drastic drop in organic traffic after your redesign. A few factors could be contributing to this issue and might merit further investigation.
First, while the implementation of 301 redirects is a solid step towards preserving SEO value, it’s crucial to ensure that all links and internal navigation are functioning correctly. It’s worth using tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your site and identify any broken links or redirect chains that could negatively impact user experience or search engine crawling.
Secondly, the blocking of a significant portion of your pages by robots.txt due to marketing parameters can severely impact your site’s indexability. Consider whether these HubSpot parameters can be managed differently or if specific conditions can be set to allow essential pages to be indexed. Using canonical tags to indicate the preferred versions of your pages might also help in maintaining SEO value despite the outbound linking strategy.
Lastly, keep an eye on your content strategy during the redesign. Sometimes, a redesign might unintentionally affect the site’s content structure or the visibility of high-performing pages. Regularly reviewing your analytics can help identify which pages were successful and need to be highlighted or optimized further post-redesign.
Implementing these strategies may help recover lost traffic and ensure that your website remains competitive in SERPs. Keep experimenting and adjusting; recovery can take time, but it’s definitely possible!