Recovering Visibility in Google After a Failed Site Migration
In 14 days, we fixed errors in redirects and the sitemap, restoring organic traffic to pre-change levels.
CloudNode Polska lost 64% of organic traffic after changing servers and CMS. The company was losing 14 to 18 inquiries daily. Silesia Performance Lab took over the project when the situation was critical.
The challenge
The migration carried out on the night of April 12-13, 2024, turned out to be a technological failure. The new system did not automatically generate a sitemap, and 1,428 key URLs started returning a 404 error. Google was removing subpages from the index at a rate of 120 addresses per day. Visibility in search results dropped from 4,200 phrases in the top ten to just 890. CloudNode's sales department recorded the worst week in three years because the phone stopped ringing.
Our approach
We started work on May 4 at 9:00 AM. Adam and Marek from our team performed a technical comparative audit of the old and new service structures. Instead of looking for someone to blame, we checked server logs for 14 hours straight. We wanted to understand where Google's robots were hitting a wall. We focused on the 214 most important subpages that historically provided the company with 80% of revenue. We check facts, we don't promise miracles, so we immediately showed the client a list of critical errors to fix.
The solution
We manually implemented a list of 1,542 301 redirects in the server configuration file within the first two days. We fixed HTTP header errors and created a new XML sitemap, which we manually submitted in Google tools. We removed 34 redirect loops that were blocking search engine robots. We configured position monitoring that reported changes to us every 60 minutes, so we could react in real-time to every change in the index.
Results
Within 14 days of the intervention, organic traffic returned to normal. In some service categories, we even recorded a 7% increase compared to pre-failure results. A specific audit brought specific profits.
Timeline
-
May 4, 2024Server log audit and 404 error analysis
-
May 6, 2024Implementation of 1,542 redirects and header fixes
-
May 9, 2024XML sitemap generation and manual re-indexing in Google
-
May 18, 2024Position stabilization and return to 4,200 phrases in Top 10
"Silesia Performance Lab saved our quarter. In two weeks, they fixed what others broke over a month. Data speaks for itself - we're back in the game."