Google Traffic Going Down After Migration
- Thread starter TheBigK
- Start date
FabioCesar
Member
I'm experiencing the same problem after the migration and make the appropriate redirects, the hits are falling every day ..
Before migration the average was 34,000 visit / day, after the migration is 16,000 visits / day
Although the drop is sharp, users liked the new system, so we still believe it is a matter of few weeks to recover access
Before migration the average was 34,000 visit / day, after the migration is 16,000 visits / day
Although the drop is sharp, users liked the new system, so we still believe it is a matter of few weeks to recover access
Ok, I think this answers my question. Just noting that my salsa forums is down about 20% on traffic from google since the switch and assuming it will take a few months to get back to normal. We have the redirects in place.
Andre Daub
Active member
We have moved from vb to xf 3 weeks ago. redirects are in place.
Traffic is down 50%.
Hope to see it coming back soon. ;-)
Traffic is down 50%.
Hope to see it coming back soon. ;-)
Andre Daub
Active member
That sounds nice. 
Will post here an update if anything will change.
Will post here an update if anything will change.
Mostly this is due to the vBulletin v3 "archive" (an SE friendly presentation of all forum content, text-only). Most SE target content from there and this is lost completely after the migration (because redirects don't handle the "archive" URLs).
It takes some time until this will be recovered after the migration to XF.
It takes some time until this will be recovered after the migration to XF.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I redirected our archive as well as our full vB site URLs to XF, which I noticed some other solutions here did not cover. I did not check Google rankings (really can't, as we have so many varied topics), but as far as forum usage, visits, number online and post counts, they all shot up dramatically once everyone got used to the new forum (took a few weeks).
In fact, I had to make doubly certain we redirected our archive URLs since I disallowed most robots from our main site. When we were having an overload of traffic on our older server, the bots hitting the full site were really slamming it hard. Shifting all that bot traffic to the archive (text only) view helped us a bit.
After converting to XF, I noticed even within 36 hours that Google was picking up our new page URLs.
Yes, dealing with the vb3 "archive" is extremely important when handling search engines after a migration!
We also still use vb3 for some very large forums (due to heavily customization) and more than 75% of all search engine traffic leads to the "archive" URLs. Most income from banner ads comes from there too.
Andre Daub
Active member
We have had the archive disabled. So this does not matter to us.
Many rankings have dropped, like you can see here:
That happened to thousand of rankings. Week 36 was on vbulletin with vbseo.
google has indexed new url´s very fast.
Crawling is up on very high level since we have migrated to xf. like you can see here on the Screenshot from google webmastertools.
I think that google is recalculating the rankings and this will take time. I hope to come back with my rankings in the next weeks. ;-)
Many rankings have dropped, like you can see here:
That happened to thousand of rankings. Week 36 was on vbulletin with vbseo.
google has indexed new url´s very fast.
Crawling is up on very high level since we have migrated to xf. like you can see here on the Screenshot from google webmastertools.
I think that google is recalculating the rankings and this will take time. I hope to come back with my rankings in the next weeks. ;-)
Or you may get ranked for other keywords. You never know what happens with such a large design change.
If you want to compare seriously, you have to compare the numbers of the totals in Analytics only.
craigiri
Well-known member
Our forum and site have been around for more than a decade (actually 18 years), so our experience represents long term results. One chart shows the search (goog-only) traffic from before we switched to XF and what it is now. That's a fair comparison, and it's safe to say that we have done fantastic with XF.
The other shows goog search for the last month compared to last year. This reflects more on the other thread where some say the new goog upgrade hurt them.
Of course, depending on the content of your forums...your results may differ! But these are for a long term informational resource site.
Summary - neither change (from old EE forums to XF) nor goog upgrade did anything except help us. We did get a very short - one or two month - drop off right when we switched, which is to be expected.
The other shows goog search for the last month compared to last year. This reflects more on the other thread where some say the new goog upgrade hurt them.
Of course, depending on the content of your forums...your results may differ! But these are for a long term informational resource site.
Summary - neither change (from old EE forums to XF) nor goog upgrade did anything except help us. We did get a very short - one or two month - drop off right when we switched, which is to be expected.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I would only hope that setting indexing to a high level does not drag a forum down. On our old server, I had to block the baidu-bot since it actually was hitting so hard as to be a denial of service attack. And in years past, we had to do adjust Yahoo's spiders for a similar reason. I will say that Googlebot seems to enjoy a permanent place in our online users list though. Being only a few hundred shy of nine million posts, I guess that is to be expected. 
FabioCesar
Member
After two years using the XF can say that for my website, the replacement system was the worst thing I did before our traffic was 25,000 visits per day, now barely passes 7,000 visits per day.
What I realize is that XF near another simpler systems is much higher, as seen near the IPB and VB the comparison is not up to snuff ..
Again, this is from my point of view, by my experience, if it worked for others I'm happy, but for me the result was very bad.
What I realize is that XF near another simpler systems is much higher, as seen near the IPB and VB the comparison is not up to snuff ..
Again, this is from my point of view, by my experience, if it worked for others I'm happy, but for me the result was very bad.
Claudio
Well-known member
That doesn't mean it's XenForo's fault. Did you redirect old links? you need to keep in mind that Google has also made changes to its algorithm
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
There are a lot of reasons for a drop after a forum conversion:
In other words, many factors contribute to it. XF alone does not cause a drop.
We were stagnant maybe for up to a month following the conversion last November, but we've been getting new posts at a record pace now. The forum has been around for 11 years (founded January 2002). We just went over 9 million posts within the past day or two, and we were under 8 million when we converted. We averaged 750-800 visitors online before the conversion, where we now exceed 1,000 visitors during peak hours. And as stated above, my redirects were being picked up by Google within 36 hours of the conversion.
No redirected links, or links that are incorrectly redirected;
Visitors discouraged by the new site format or dislike of new forum software;
Google algorithms changing over time;
Lack of current or fresh content.
Visitors discouraged by the new site format or dislike of new forum software;
Google algorithms changing over time;
Lack of current or fresh content.
In other words, many factors contribute to it. XF alone does not cause a drop.
We were stagnant maybe for up to a month following the conversion last November, but we've been getting new posts at a record pace now. The forum has been around for 11 years (founded January 2002). We just went over 9 million posts within the past day or two, and we were under 8 million when we converted. We averaged 750-800 visitors online before the conversion, where we now exceed 1,000 visitors during peak hours. And as stated above, my redirects were being picked up by Google within 36 hours of the conversion.
Similar threads
