8 month domain migration failure - no authority transfer

buggedout

Moved domains 8 months ago. Prior to migration: ₃₀ clicks/day, 1.5k impressions. Now: ₅₀ impressions, clicks basically zero.

what I implemented:

301 redirects (site-wide, page-by-page)
New sitemap in Search Console, old domain verified
Change of address tool submitted

First 3 days post-migration - traffic seemed to transfer. Then it collapsed and stayed flat.

12 months of SEO presence gone. If you've managed to claw back authority after a bad migration, I'd like to hear what actually worked beyond the standard checklist.

tiktokguru

SEO migrations are honestly one of the riskiest things to get wrong - and the fact it's been 8 months with no authority transfer means something fundamental broke along the way. 😬

Here's what I've seen work when a move like this goes sideways:

🔸 Check your redirects first - every single old URL needs a 301, not a 302, and they should point to the most relevant new page, not just the homepage. A colleague once found 40% of their redirects were 302s by accident.

🔸 Verify the new domain isn't blocked - look in Search Console for manual actions, and make sure the property is verified. Sometimes the new domain inherits old penalties or gets flagged for a sudden change.

🔸 Re-request indexing - if authority isn't flowing, Google may still see the old domain as the canonical version. Use the URL Inspection tool to force recrawl of your most important pages.

🔸 Check backlink health - run a fresh backlink report. If the old domain still shows links but the new one doesn't, the redirect chain is broken somewhere. Tools like Ahrefs or Majestic will spot that fast.

🔸 Don't forget internal linking - update all internal links to point to the new domain. A site with broken internal links looks like a ghost town to crawlers.

I've been through two big domain moves myself. The one that worked took about 10-12 weeks to recover full ranking. The one that failed (agency handled it) took over a year to fix because they skipped the 301 map. If you're eight months in, I'd hire an SEO consultant to audit the redirect chain and the server response headers. Sometimes it's a tiny config issue, like a missing trailing slash or a www vs non-www mismatch, that kills the whole transfer.

digitalnomad

i've helped with two domain migrations for reasonably high-traffic sites myself. 🛠️ When you nail the process - proper 301s, updated internal links, Search Console changes - traffic and authority usually follow. It might take a few weeks, sometimes a few months (SEO moves at its own pace). But eight months with no transfer? Something in your setup definitely went wrong. 😬 Happy to compare notes if you want to walk through the redirect chain or anything else

backlinker

Honestly, domain migrations are a proper nightmare when the old backlink equity doesn't map across correctly. Eight months is a painful wait - usually by month three you should see at least some movement. That long a stall points to something structural like redirect chaining or a canonical mismatch that's blocking the reassessment.

I've been burned by this before. Standard audit checklist: Screaming Frog crawl of the old domain (if still live) and the new one, cross-checking redirect chains with a quick script. Something like this can show you if there's unnecessary hops:

curl -sI -L https://example.com/old-page | grep -i "^< HTTP" | wc -l

If it's more than two, you've got chaining. Then I dump index status from GSC into Sheets and overlay visibility metrics from Semrush over a six-month window. the trick is isolating where the leak actually is - redirect vs canonical vs just poor internal linking on the new domain. Eight months is too long for a clean 301 to fail, so something else is gumming up the works

analyticsjunkie

Ugh, that's brutal. Yeah, sounds like your backlink profile went on a permanent holiday. One thing nobody's pointed out yet is that Google updates can totally pull this stunt too-you might've just been unlucky with the timing. Classic Google, breaking things for fun.

pixelpusher

sorry it happened, but authority transfer is a myth

jamesaso

Worked on a major app launch page migration and flagged straight away that moving domains could wreck the hard-won authority. Client pushed ahead regardless. Took about eighteen months to claw back the rankings. Absolute nightmare if you're relying on organic install traffic from that page.

budgetburner

you realise that domain migrations always come with a gamble, right? Even if you dot every i and cross every t, there's no guarantee the authority follows you. Best case you're back in a few weeks. Worst case - which sounds like where you're sitting - that authority never fully lands and you're stuck explaining to the boss why organic is still in the toilet eight months later. I've seen sites that never recovered, and the reasons are usually buried in redirect chains, broken internal links, or Google just deciding the new domain doesn't deserve the old one's trust. nobody warns you that "best practice" still leaves you holding the bag.

localpack

man, that's rough - nothing worse than watching hard-earned momentum disappear into thin air 😤. if you got that initial traffic spike before it tanked, it screams "technical hiccup" rather than "your SEO mojo is gone forever."

I'd double-check three things like I do with broken Facebook ad accounts:

Indexing - Is Google even crawling the new pages? Run site:yournewdomain.com.
Redirect chains - A -> B -> C kills link equity. Use Screaming Frog or a similar tool.
Canonical tags - If the old domain still has canonical pointing to itself, you're wasting your time.

from my ad spend experience, 8 months of pain usually means one misconfigured screw, not a wrecked engine. Fix that, and you should see things come back within a few weeks 🤞

marketingmule

Was it a platform change as well? Sometimes the way a new site gets crawled just shifts-could be a technical hiccup rather than an authority issue. Anyone else had that happen?

justauser

That's a really good point - what was the history of the old domain before you moved? Was it previously registered and had some age, or was it a fresh registration? That can make a huge difference with how search engines treat the transfer. Would love to hear more about what happened before the move 🙂

budgetburner

You're overcomplicating it. traffic drop? Domain authority's a myth anyway. Check if your 301s are actually pointing where they should-most people screw that up. Analytics and GSC are enough if you know what you're looking at. But honestly? If you're still chasing authority eight months in, you've got bigger problems than verification.

buggedout

Had the same issue. Common culprits: non-301 redirects or internal links not updated. Worth checking GSC for coverage too.