
Ask HN: Google removed my site from search results, what can I do? - throwaway25239
Hi HN,<p>I have a website for a piece of software I make, and Google search traffic accounts for a reasonably large portion of downloads. At the end of April, I moved the site to a new domain (using Google&#x27;s &quot;site move&quot; tool), and everything appeared to be fine – Google indexed the new site within a few days, and traffic remained the same. However, in the past few weeks, I&#x27;ve noticed a drop in traffic to the site, and when I looked at the Search Console, I realized that all traffic from Google suddenly disappeared in the middle of June: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;S1CCl2f.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;S1CCl2f.png</a><p>Google has all the pages in the site indexed - when I search for &quot;site:[my URL]&quot;, the pages show up as expected – but they seem to have been completely removed from any search results. If I search for the exact name of my app, where my site was previously the first result, the site appears nowhere in the 16 pages of results that are returned (I looked at all of them!). Similarly, if I copy a few sentences or an entire paragraph from the site and search for exact matches, Google will return irrelevant results or no results at all, and my site won&#x27;t be included anywhere in the results.<p>At least from the search console, everything appears fine - there are no errors reported, and the &quot;manual actions&quot; and &quot;security issues&quot; sections are empty. The site content has barely changed in the last few months, so I can&#x27;t see any reason for the change.<p>What can I do? There seems to be no way to contact an actual human, and since nothing on the site has changed, I can&#x27;t think of anything to revert. I could try going back to my old domain, but I&#x27;m worried that would confuse Google even more, and I&#x27;m not sure that&#x27;s even the source of the issue. Has anyone on HN ever faced this problem before?
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hayksaakian
Do you still control the old domain?

Don't rely on the "site move" tool to talk to the crawler.

You need to 301 redirect your pages from the old domain to the new domain.

I see this all the time with clients who skip some basics when changing
domains.

I'm happy to talk you through this via HN comments

~~~
throwaway25239
The old site was hosted on Github Pages, so there isn't a way to do a server-
side redirect AFAIK, but I replaced each page on the old site with a client-
side redirect in the following format:

    
    
        <link rel="canonical" href="new page URL" />
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=new page URL">

~~~
hayksaakian
When you say it was on github pages, do you mean it was on a github subdomain
like example.github.io ?

~~~
throwaway25239
Yes.

~~~
hayksaakian
Were you (1) using example.github.io as a CNAME with another domain, or (2)
were people going to example.github.io directly?

I'm still not 100% clear on how the previous domain was configured with github
pages

if it's 1) then you should be able to set up redirects for the domain using
something like cloudflare to serve the 301s to the old domain.

if it's 2) then there really aren't any more "simple" solutions that you can
implement purely technically. You've already added the canonical reference and
the meta refresh. You could also add an A tag link to "Download the software
on our new website" in addition to the other measures. Users are already sent
over via the meta refresh, but the link will encourage crawlers who skip that
tag to find you as well.

If your goal is to show up when people search the name of the software
(example: "iterm2"), then the solution is to register on every possible social
media website you can find and link them to your new domain. In addition to
that it's worth using an online PR service to distribute a press release with
a link to your new site announcing the new domain.

If there's a more generic term (example: "mac terminal software") then you've
got a longer road ahead of you with a regular SEO campaign.

~~~
throwaway25239
It's the second one.

Most of my previous traffic was from direct searches for the name of the
software, so I think I'll try the social media approach - thanks!

~~~
hayksaakian
Sounds good, good luck. Assuming your name is relatively unique then this
should be something that resolves within 4-6 weeks. If it takes longer you
might need to do some high profile PR to get the name out there and linked to
the right place.

------
llarsson
I think it sees your new domain as just a blatant copy of the old one. Quickly
set up a server on the old domain and redirect to the new domain, so you tell
Google that the new one is the authoritative site.

~~~
throwaway25239
Sorry for not including this in the original post, but I did replace the old
site with a set of redirects:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23884449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23884449)

~~~
jimnotgym
I think the person above is telling you to set up a webserver to 301 redirect
pages from your old domain to your new one. I think that will tell Google that
you have chosen to move the site to a new domain, not just copied the site off
someone else

~~~
throwaway25239
The old domain was a *.github.io domain (which I migrated to a custom domain),
so I don't think it's possible to use my own server for it.

Google did pick up the relationship correctly, at least in the beginning - the
new domain got the same ranking as the old one, and the "backlinks" section of
the search console shows links to the old domain under the property
information for the new domain. So it seems like this type of redirect does
have an effect, unless it somehow expires after a few months and a 301
redirect doesn't?

------
robinoh
> There seems to be no way to contact an actual human, and since nothing on
> the site has changed, I can't think of anything to revert.

There are some Google people on Twitter responding to concerns such as yours.
@JohnMu is one of them. You can send a private message to him about it.

We've experienced similar issues, but possibly with a different cause, see
[https://seotool.ee/indexed-not-submitted-in-
sitemap](https://seotool.ee/indexed-not-submitted-in-sitemap)

Once Google doesn't like your site, it's not easy to get it back. It involves
being patient and trying to understand what's wrong. Sometimes though, there
is nothing to be done and your site just comes back up. Google is a big black
box in this regard, and doesn't give any message in search console about what
may be wrong.

~~~
Yajirobe
Why should Twitter be the space for Google's customer support service? This is
absurd

~~~
zucker42
The actual answer to your question is probably that it's better for Google if
it's difficult to reach a human without sufficient effort, since it lowers
their support costs. Providing a escape hatch in their support process might
mean that too many people use it.

Also, the person in this case is neither a Google user nor a customer, so
there's a particularly small incentive to provide easy support.

Maybe a lot of it comes down to Google's tendency to rely on AI, but the fact
that so many companies have crappy support to me indicates that it's a harder
problem than one might think.

------
huy-nguyen
I’ve done this a few times. Even if you do 301 redirects properly, it still
can take a month or two for google traffic to day get back to previous level.
You might just have to be patient.

------
rathish_g
I have tried this 'perfect switch over' for a major domain after many months
of planning. Everything worked fine for a month and then the traffic dropped
to 30%. The traffic went back to normal level after few months.

As usual there was no response from Google/ Forums etc. All I could speculate
is the loss of backlinks. It takes months to reach the original level.

Keep improving the site and you should be back and kicking in 6 months.

------
bluecmd
This doesn't help you now, but why didn't you keep the old site and just 301'd
to the new page for a year or so?

~~~
franze
There is a really good spec by google on how to move sites:
[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049?hl=en)
Googles best spec in my eyes. 301 (what, how, and what not) change of address
request, sitemap.xml,

------
thrownaway954
Always... Always setup your site with Google search console and submit your
sitemap to it.

You don't need to setup the old site on a server to 301 everything. You can
just CNAME the old domain to the new one. And yes, you can do this with a
GitHub.io domain, just have a .CNAME file in the repo. Then setup 301s on the
new domain for the old paths to point to the new ones. The Redirections
plugins for WordPress make this easy as hell if you are running WordPress.

hopefully this will help you out and get your new site index in no time

------
throwmeaway5689
I've been through this multiple times in the last couple of years, it's worked
well for me to move domain authority around in this manner. Maintaining a 301
redirect map on the original subdomain should work fine (probably better than
meta headers on reinstated pages, I haven't heard of Google paying much
attention to that) and you should be able to claw back your rankings. Running
something like jekyll-redirect-from within your old github pages project looks
like the ticket. Good luck!

------
gscott
I have had something similar happen to me. It was resolved by getting more
sites to link into mine. Getting new incoming linkes just immediately set
things right.

------
johnmarcus
I think for your software product, you may have underestimated the value of
GitHub.io domain. Your post makde it sound like it went from one custom self
owned domain to another, that's not the case at all. I would move it back to
github.io, and build your other domain over time until they are 1&2 in results
(or there abouts)

~~~
auganov
Had exactly this experience. Had some very popular content up on a platform
site, ranked very well. Wanted to move to my own domain. Found it nearly
impossible to show up in search results at all. Even searching for the exact
title wouldn't bring it up despite seemingly being "indexed".

------
saluki
I would definitely put up your old domain and leave the content the way it
was, to try to get that back in the SERP.

Take your new domain and create new content there to try to build it up in the
SERP over time.

Google seems to love aged domains.

I've always been hesitant to change domains.

I have changed the URLs on sites so going from services.html to /service with
a 301 Google seems to keep the pages in the same place in the SERP.

I feel it's very risky to depend on Google for your traffic at this point.
Definitely easier for it to disappear/drop, it doesn't feel like it used to be
this way, it was pretty dependable if you had good content and were user
friendly.

I miss Classic Google, I feel like SEO was more fair and even back then. You
create a site, with good human content and Google rewards you.

Now I can search for a clients keywords and there is spam, malware and even
404 on the first page but no regular sites with good content.

Maybe Google or someone will bring back what was Classic Search someday and
can get the majority of people using it again.

I literally loved Google, I have shirts and hats, dreamed of working there.
I'm definitely heart broken over the way they have changed over the past few
years.

RIP Classic Google.

~~~
saagarjha
> I feel it's very risky to depend on Google for your traffic at this point.

Yes, but what choice do you have?

~~~
edoceo
When you SEO, you test across Yandex, BING, DDG and you make sure to build up
back-links

------
Can_Not
This might help if you can edit your html's meta tags on your old domain:
[https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization](https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization)

------
webbrahmin
Put up your old domain with content and then do a rel canonical from each page
on the old domain to the corresponding page on new domain.

I faced same issue couple years back. Hope it helps.

Sorry if the same answer has been given before mine.

~~~
throwaway25239
So the old domain should have the same content as the new one? Right now, I
have blank pages on the old domain with a canonical link and a redirect. I
could try duplicating the content, but it seems like having duplicate content
might cause Google to penalize me even further?

------
ramiz1337
Sounds like you need an SEO audit - contact someone who understand technical
SEO that can provide you an audit. It may be a small/simple issue causing your
website to be de-indexed.

------
hpen
How did you drive traffic to your site in the first place? I'm starting an
online SaaS but having trouble getting my first users.

~~~
rozenmd
It helps to write more. A lot more. Getting traffic from Google only works if
you have a _ton_ of content.

Your video is great, but doesn't tell me why I would use this over Trello or
something similar.

\- "Pricing is free" feels ominous (to me), say it's a free beta or something
instead.

\- It's not entirely clear what "roadmap" means on your landing page. Is it
your product roadmap?

\- Your colour contrast hurts my eyes (maybe I'm weird), particularly black +
purple.

~~~
hpen
Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps I need an animation showing how when you
click on a card it takes you into that cards Kanban board. (The feature
differentiator from Trello)

As for the color contrast I plan to add more options in the future such as
light mode.

------
franze
Give us more info: current domain, old domain

~~~
franze
Could be lots of self made issues.

How do the 4 SEO Tests look like? Outlined here in the "is it me or is it
google" section [https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/what-to-do-when-a-
googl...](https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/what-to-do-when-a-google-core-
update-hits-you-3d0a891c367d)

~~~
throwaway25239
Thanks for the suggestions. I think those 4 all look OK. The site content is
purely static HTML (and some images) that hasn't changed significantly in
months, so I'm guessing that's not the issue.

I'd rather not post the site URL here; is it OK if I email you?

~~~
franze
Honestly, as with most other tools that you have to care about but don't want
to: just follow the spec
[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049?hl=en)

------
slim
Buy google ads ? Put google ads in your site ? Google bots will certainly
notice you if you do that

------
quda
Don't use Google!

------
kgraves
I'd rather go onto DuckDuckGo to drive SEO traffic.

Don't give money to Google, it isn't worth it since they are surveillance
capitalists.

Boost your traffic through an ethical search engine instead.

~~~
montroser
DuckDuckGo doesn't really have their own index. They mostly just fall through
to Google and Bing for their actual results. It's cool they supposedly don't
track you, but they are really just a proxy rather than a full fledged index
themselves.

