Traffic fell after the new site went live

This is the most common unhappy conversation in website work, and the causes are few enough to work through systematically. Most are recoverable if caught within a couple of months.

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The usual causes, in order: missing or wrong redirects, content removed that was matching searches, pages blocked from indexing, a slower site, changed page structure, and occasionally an unrelated search update that coincided. Work through them in that order, since the first two account for most cases.

First, confirm what actually fell

Before diagnosing, separate the numbers. Did visitors fall, did enquiries fall, or both? A fall in enquiries with steady traffic is a conversion problem, not a search problem, and looking in the wrong place wastes weeks.

Also check whether the fall is across the whole site or concentrated in particular pages. Concentrated falls point at specific causes and are usually easier to fix.

Cause one: redirects

Missing, wrong, or chained redirects are the leading cause by a wide margin. Every address that existed before and now returns an error is a page whose accumulated value is being discarded.

Check Search Console for pages it cannot reach, and test your previously best-performing addresses by hand. Fixing this is usually the single highest-return action available, and recovery is often quick.

Cause two: content that was removed

New sites are shorter. The material cut frequently includes the specific paragraphs, questions and details that were matching what people searched for.

Compare the old and new versions of your previously best pages. If the new version is half the length, the missing half is a strong candidate, and restoring it is straightforward if you kept a copy of the old site.

Cause three: pages blocked from indexing

Check whether the instruction hiding the staging site was removed, whether the robots file blocks anything it should not, and whether canonical tags point where they should.

This cause produces the most dramatic falls, because the pages effectively cease to exist for search engines. It is also the fastest to fix once identified.

Causes four and five: speed and structure

New sites are often heavier, especially where large images and animations were added. Slower pages affect both visitors and, more gradually, search performance.

Structural changes matter too: if internal links to a page disappeared, or it moved several clicks deeper into the site, it can lose ground even with a perfect redirect in place.

  • Compare mobile speed before and after.
  • Check that important pages are still linked from somewhere prominent.
  • Check that page titles and headings were not genericised in the rebuild.
  • Confirm structured data survived the migration.

The coincidence to rule out

Occasionally a search engine update lands in the same fortnight as your launch, and the two get confused. Check whether the drop coincides with a widely reported update, and whether competitors moved as well.

This is worth ruling out rather than assuming, because the remedies are entirely different and chasing the wrong one costs months.

How Licheo diagnoses this

We work the causes in order of likelihood rather than starting with the most complicated one, because redirects and removed content account for the large majority.

Where a client comes to us after a bad migration, the old site and the old address list are the two most valuable things they can still have, which is why we always keep copies of both.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Redesign and revenue. The other parts:

Questions people ask

Why did my traffic drop after a redesign?
Most often missing or wrong redirects, then content that was removed, then pages blocked from indexing, then slower pages and structural changes. Work through them in that order, since the first two dominate.
How do I tell a search problem from a conversion problem?
Separate the numbers. Steady visitors with falling enquiries is a conversion problem on the pages. Falling visitors is a search problem, and looking in the wrong place wastes weeks.
Can the traffic be recovered?
Usually, if caught within a couple of months and the cause is redirects, removed content or blocked indexing. Recovery is slower where the site has been re-crawled extensively in its broken state.
Could a search update be to blame instead?
Occasionally, and it is worth ruling out by checking whether the drop coincides with a widely reported update and whether competitors moved too. The remedies are completely different.
What do I need in order to fix this?
A copy of the old site and a list of the old addresses. Those two make almost every cause diagnosable and fixable, which is why they should be kept before any launch.

Diagnose the fall properly

We work the causes in order of likelihood, starting with the two that account for most cases.

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