Traffic Crash after Transfer Blog to New Domain

Is the original site still on the redcat-travel.com domain?

Which method have you used for the domain redirect?

I have contacted my hosting provider via live chat (bluehost) and I think they made redcat-travel.com a parked domain.

Not sure what do you mean with your first question? I haven’t done any database changes, so the folder is still called redcattravel. I have just changed the Site URL and Address in the WP General Settings and updated the shortlinks.

That makes sense, as you only get a 404 error when the page doesn’t exist (hence my first question).

Hopefully, when the domain becomes “unparked”, your redirects will start working again, you can wait for Google to all the re-indexing and everything will be back to normal.

I was wrong, the domain is actually an “addon” domain, not a parked one. It’s still showing the 404 errors. However, if you type in redcat-travel.com, it will redirect to thailandredcat.com, that works.

Can you disable the redirect plugin and check to see if you still get the 404 errors?

I have disabled it, but I still get the 404 errors. Again, except for redcat-travel.com which successfully redirects to thailandredcat.com.

I’ve just read this again:

I have just changed the Site URL and Address in the WP General Settings and updated the shortlinks.

Did you change this on redcat-travel.com so it references the new domain? If so, try changing it back it’s original settings. This could be the cause of the 404 errors.

You want both sites to work on their own domains, while the redirect plugin takes care of the redirects.

I’ve never used a redirect plugin to redirect from one domain to another, I’ve always used a .htaccess file. If this latest change doesn’t fix your problem, try asking your host if they can set up the redirects for you via htaccess and remove the plugin.

I cannot login to redcat-travel.com/wp-login anymore. It will result in a 404 error as well.

I have about 230 pages. I could do the redirect manually using a plugin. Do you think this will help getting back the traffic?

Contact your host. You shouldn’t be getting a 404.

Redirecting a whole site from one domain to another, assuming the structure has remained the same requires code like this in the .htaccess file (I haven’t tried this code, hence the word “like”, but it looks okay):

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^redcat-travel.com$ [OR]
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.redcat-travel.com$
  RewriteRule (.*)$ https://www.thailandredcat.com/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

If this code is correct, it’s the easiest and quickest way to add 301s across the whole site.

I just had a live chat with the guy from Bluehost and he set up a “Wild Card Redirect” for me. Now all pages are redirecting to thailandredcat.com. Finally ?? Do you think that was the main issue and traffic will soon recover?

Great news!

It should do, but you can never be certain with redirects. At least you have done all you can.

I think so. I make sure to give an update if traffic recovers. Thank you so much for your help!

Yes, please do. I’d love to know how you get on.

Thank you so much for your help!

Thanks! Good luck.

I will.

Just for you to see how the page views per week dropped since the issue first came up:

https://www.thailandredcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/blogstats.bmp