Google’s John Mueller suggested that a alter of location for a domain and website can obtain longer than four months to process. He additionally provided understanding on how to forestall that from happening in command to have a improved outcome.
Curious Domain Migration Experience
A location owner reported on Reddit that they had a prosperous domain immigration at the commencement of 2026 and everything progressed comparatively smoothly alongside traffic completely restored by April.
Four months afterward Google restored the old domain’s hunt visibility, basically deindexing the new domain and resurrecting the old type in the hunt results. Site visitors clicking to the old domain were motionless being redirected to the new version, which hunt console began reporting as crawled but not indexed.
They explained:
“So I have a website that was doing extremely well, particularly on Google. At the commencement of 2026, I changed the name and domain so that one additional topic could be covered. Did all the redirects, Change of Address, and inner name changes correct distant so traffic restored quickly about the commencement of April.
Everything was indexed on the new location and the new domain was getting about 5,000 impressions per day. Four months later, Google abruptly reverted everything rear to the old domain.
More than 5,000 pages of the new domain were changed to Crawled, Not Currently Index and the new domain now gets 20 impressions per week.
But if I open GSC on the old domain, everything is there. The complete old domain was abruptly indexed all complete again and all the impressions and clicks are showing there.
So one article shows up on Google under the old domain and whenever you click it, it redirects to the identical article under the new domain and counts as a regular perspective for the new domain.
Why would Google abruptly revert this four months following everything was fixed? How do I fix this? Do I really have to fix this since the impressions and clicks are motionless there, fair being redirected?”
Many Details Missing
The individual sharing their cognition doesn’t say if they crawled their new domain to see if there are any inner links that are hardcoded alongside complete URLs using the old domain name alternatively of using a related URL.
Here’s the difference:
- Absolute URL: www.example.com/some-page.html
- Relative URL: /some-page.html
Sometimes complete URLs can sneak into the location navigation, footer navigation, or inside the satisfied itself as contextual links. The finest way to capture those is to provision the old domain a complete crawl alongside Screaming Frog previous to the domain name immigration in command to acknowledge those stray complete inner links.
Another crucial item missing is how they redirected the old domain to the new domain. Was it a domain registrar-level redirect that preserves URL paths or was it a URL to URL redirect? The registrar-level redirect power not maintain document paths. HTTPS forwarding may neglect if the old domain doesn’t have an SSL certificate.
Another matter that can possibly complicate a immigration are chained redirects.
And here’s a big one: Redirects can sometimes neglect whenever or if the navigational construction on the new location changes.
Lastly, the individual asking the inquiry on Reddit did not signify if they updated their XML sitemap. This matters since XML sitemaps communicate preferred canonical URLs to Google. If the sitemap motionless lists the old domain, it could dispatch conflicting canonicalization signals during the migration.
Google explicitly mentions the usefulness of sitemaps as part of a URL migration:
“Submitting a sitemap can assistance create the finding procedure quicker, and it’s fine to move your location in sections.”
That direction presumes that the sitemap is for the accurate domain name, right?
Google’s John Mueller offers his inner cognition of another things to avoid.
John Mueller’s Advice For A Successful Domain Migration
Mueller responded that sometimes the domain name immigration can obtain an additional lengthy time. He additionally recommended doing a hunt console alter of location for the two WWW and non-WWW versions of the domain name.
He responded:
“Happy to obtain a appearance if you desire to DM me the domains. Sometimes things fair obtain a particularly lengthy period to be completely processed.
One item which we noticed (and adjusted in the records a during back) that can assistance is to create certain that you have alter of location set up in hunt console for the two www and non-www , so that it can completely migrate the domain.”
Canonicalization And Site Migration
The WWW and non-WWW domain versions of URLs for a alter of location is a fine catch. There could be links from exterior of the location that are linking to one or the another that could be contributing to Google choosing the old domain as the canonical.
For diagnosing a location immigration gone wrong, it’s not unreasonable to method it as a canonicalization issue. Canonicalization is whenever Google chooses one domain or URL complete all others as the one to indicator and rank.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Mulad Images
