This Changes Everything: A Domain Migration With No Homepage 301 Redirect (SEO Case Study)

By Ethan Lazuk

What happens to a website’s performance on Google Search when you migrate from one domain to another, but you can’t 301 redirect the homepage?

You know, that main website page that has most of the backlinks pointing to it, and where users tend to arrive first when searching a navigational query.

Welp, I was part of a website migration in August 2023 where we encountered this very situation!

I used this article to update on what we faced and how we responded over time. It’s been through several updates.

I never got the chance to finish this how I wanted, but hopefully, if you encounter a situation with a domain migration of a website where a homepage 301 redirect isn’t an option, this can give you some ideas.

Below is an initial write-up on the results of the domain migration (published on 8/12).

Then I added an update a week later (on 8/19), a second update a day after that (on 8/20), and a third (and final yet exciting!) update a week after that (on 8/26), then a final takeaway several months later.

When a website’s homepage isn’t 301 redirected during a domain migration, Google may not consolidate the canonical signals of the old domain’s homepage on the new domain’s homepage, and therefore the search engine may fluctuate between showing both homepages for navigational queries.

Here’s the original write-up on the situation from 8/12/23 …

What was the context behind the domain migration?

This wasn’t a consulting client of mine. It was an agency client. 😉

Their original and new sites were both built on Shopify. All the data is anonymized.

Their website had to be redirected from a domain like brand.com to a new domain like brandproduct.com. This was for non-marketing and legal reasons.

Nearly all of the original website’s content and design assets were being duplicated on the new domain. In essence, it was a straight domain migration, not a merge or redesign, with only a handful of preliminary content and page updates.

Implementing the 301 redirects presented a few challenges, though.

Since we didn’t have DNS access for the website we were migrating, we couldn’t point the old domain to the new domain.

To implement 301 redirects, we uploaded a CSV file with cross-domain redirects into the old website’s CMS. Mapping these was a cinch because most of the URL file paths stayed the same.

However, when the Shopify redirect tool processed the CSV file, we realized one tiny detail — despite the technical documentation not revealing this fact, we weren’t allowed to 301 redirect the homepage!

We also didn’t have ownership of the old domain’s Google Search Console (nor DNS access to verify this), so we couldn’t do a Change of Address request to help things move along. (Of course, how much that would matter without a 301 redirect on the homepage is another question.)

Note: We did look into an alternative redirect solution for the homepage using a JavaScript redirect — I touched on how Googlebot may handle this in the first update below — and later were able to implement this — which I touched on in the third update below.

We’re also in the process of manually reaching out to some of the websites that have pages with the most relevant backlinks pointing to the old domain to try to update them to the new domain, which would likely send a stronger signal that it’s now the canonical version.

Stay tuned for updates on these efforts. 🙂

Workarounds we did while not having a 301 redirect for the homepage?

1. 301 redirects for all eligible pages: During the domain migration, we implemented 301 redirects for as many of the webpages as we could — which was nearly all except the homepage — pointing URLs on the old domain to the corresponding URLs on the new domain.

2. Updated the old homepage’s canonical tag: As for the old website’s homepage that we couldn’t 301 redirect, we updated its self-referencing canonical tag to reference the new domain’s homepage instead. Google reads that canonical tag just fine according to the user-declared canonical reported in Google Search Console; the search engine just wasn’t honoring it yet lol, at least according to the selected canonical (still reported as “inspected page”).

3. Updated the old homepage’s internal links to external links: We also updated all of the internal links on the old domain’s homepage to point to their corresponding pages on the new domain.

For all intents and purposes, the content of both homepages was the same, with both having similar content, headings, and title tags.

So what happened?

First, let’s look at some pre-migration performance data so we can appreciate the post-launch data.

How was the old website performing on Google Search before the domain migration?

The domain migration happened on August 1st, 2023, which gives us about 10 days of Google Search Console data to evaluate, as of the time of this initial write-up (with “fresh” data available through August 10th and partial data through August 11th).

Pre-launch organic traffic (clicks on Google Search)

On the day of the migration, which happened in the afternoon, the old website had 63 clicks (U.S.). This was actually slightly above its average of 41 clicks/day for the last 7 days and 36 clicks/day over the last 3 months.

Pre-launch branded keyword rankings

Not unexpectedly, on August 1st, the old website was ranking #1 organically for the most popular branded navigational queries.

How was the old website’s indexation & performance post-migration?

Let’s start with the status of indexed pages in the old domain. We see two drop-offs happen in the indexed page count after the migration started on August 1st. (Our page indexing data from Google Search Console is currently available through August 7th.)

Indexed pages count

As of July 31st, the day before the migration’s 301 redirects took effect, the old website had 125 indexed pages.

On the day of the migration, that number dropped to 106 (-19 pages), and then dropped again three days later on August 4th to 80 pages (-26).

In total, 45 out of 125 indexed pages have been removed from Google’s index so far.

Furthermore, we see that the page with redirect count in Google Search Console went from a pre-migration baseline of 51 on July 31st to 79 on migration day, August 1st (+68).

Then the redirected page count went to 108 four days later on August 5th (+40).

This means a total of 57 pages have had their redirects acknowledged so far.

Interestingly, this means 48 pages were removed from the index, yet 57 pages have had their redirects acknowledged.

Granted, this data is a few days behind, so we may be just not seeing the numbers correlate yet because it’s too soon.

However, it may also be a likely reason why we continue to see some of the old website’s pages still appearing in organic search results, even though their redirects could already be acknowledged by the search engine.

This situation reminds me of a recent explanation from John Mueller on Twitter (X) about why Google may show URLs even when they redirect — because searchers may still want to find them.

If you explicitly search for them, we'll continue to show them (since it's what you search for, and they redirect), even if we've processed redirects and are indexing the destination page in the meantime. Confusing for SEOs, but works for users 🙂

— John (@JohnMu) August 9, 2023

What was the old website’s organic traffic like post-launch?

Now for the interesting parts. 🙂

What happened to the old website’s organic traffic after the migration, considering that its homepage wasn’t redirected?

As a reminder, the old website had 63 clicks (U.S.) on August 1st, the day of the migration. So even though the migration happened in the afternoon, and in theory, the old website didn’t receive a full day of traffic, the number of clicks reported on Google for that day was still above average for the previous week.

Over the next few days, we observed that the clicks declined a tad, yet they were still at 51 on August 3rd, which was above average.

Then on August 4th, we noticed the clicks drop to 27, below average. (Ok, things are happening.)

And by August 8th, the website was averaging just 5 clicks/day or less. We also saw the new domain’s homepage ranking #1 for the main branded navigational queries, appearing with several sitelinks. (Things seem to be moving along alright …)

… Now for some drama!

According to click data on August 11th, traffic to the old domain increased again to 20 clicks.

Again, this isn’t fully processed data, but it does seem like Google is fluctuating between showing the old website and the new website for branded navigational queries. (Google also continues to not honor our “user-declared” canonical tag.)

Here we see the lower average position for those branded queries from August 1st to August 10th on the old website (when the new homepage started appearing more often).

And here we see them bump back up to position 1 on August 11 (when the new homepage stopped appearing as much).

What about the new website’s performance post-migration?

For the new website, we saw 1 click (U.S.) happen the day of the migration, 13 clicks reached a few days later on August 4th, and by August 10th, the website had gotten its highest traffic yet of 36 clicks — which matched the historical average for clicks per day of the old website over the last 3 months.

But … then we see the number of clicks for the new website dip on August 11th, corresponding with the increased traffic to the old website’s homepage.

Suffice to say, we’re very much in a live situation!

In terms of the indexed page count, we’re at 92 as of August 7th, compared to the original 125 of the old domain. So close, but still a little ways to go.

Initial summary & next steps

At the time of this first write-up, it’s been about a week and a half since the domain migration, and we see signs of encouragement, as well as issues to monitor.

On the plus side, we observe that after about 10 days, traffic to the new website reached a historical average, and Google has been continuously processing the redirects and reducing the indexed page count for the old site while increasing it for the new domain.

Furthermore, even though the old homepage is still reachable and appearing in search results, because we updated all its internal links to point to the new domain, users still must visit the new website to take any action, such as viewing another page or completing a conversion.

On the downside, our goal is to have the new domain performing on par with the old domain as quickly as possible, but we’re still seeing organic traffic fluctuations due to the old website’s homepage not being 301 redirected and Google still showing it in search results.

Ordinarily, having an old version of a homepage appear in search results wouldn’t be too big of an issue, as Google would likely swap it out for the new domain’s homepage in good time — we saw this happen with another interesting domain migration that’ll I’ll write about soon 🙂 — but with no 301 redirect in place for that old homepage, we couldn’t assume that Google would naturally phase it out.

That said, it still may just be a matter of time.

After all, we’re talking about results just 10 days after the migration of a domain that a) hasn’t had its homepage 301 redirected and b) was first indexed by Google more than 10 years ago, according to Google’s About This Result.

Note: We were still attempting to gain DNS access to the old website, in which case we can point the old domain to the new domain (including that pesky homepage!), as well as verify ownership in Google Search Console for a change of address request, which may not even be necessary at that point.

We were also in the process of applying a JavaScript redirect on the homepage and updating historical backlinks.

In the meantime, we made some further updates after our initial 10-day analysis of the domain migration.

First round of updates made

On August 12th, we made the following updates to the old website’s homepage to help encourage Google to canonicalize the new homepage and show it more often in search results:

• Added contextual links in the body copy of the old homepage that pointed to the new domain’s homepage using branded anchor text. (Doesn’t make a done of sense for users, granted, but neither does sending them to a deprecated homepage lol.)
• Changed the functionality of several navigational elements on the old homepage to point around 20 additional cross-domain links to unique interior pages on the new website.
• Changed the title tag of the old domain’s homepage so it no longer matched the new domain’s title tag.
• Requested Google re-crawl the old homepage with these updated signals pointing to the new homepage as the canonical version.

On August 16th, we updated the content of the new homepage as well, so it was no longer a duplicate of the old homepage.

The content edits were modest and designed to make the page more helpful. This included more clearly identifying the name of the brand in page headings, as well as revising content to explain the purpose of the products/services more clearly and presenting it in a way that would be easier to skim for a user.

On August 18th, we also optimized the new website’s homepage title tag to include a more familiar phrasing of the brand (to help with navigational searches) as well as a popular modifier term that relates to the main purpose of the brand’s products/services (to help with non-brand searches). (We also did this title tag optimization exercise for several interior pages that were now appearing in search results, updating them based on more relevant queries they currently ranked for or that had the best CTR.)

In sum, we’ve made incremental de-optimizations (of a sort) on the old homepage and optimizations on the new homepage, making the latter more helpful than the old version yet still retaining the familiarity of brand voice and style for returning visitors who may know the brand intimately but be new to the updated domain.

Next update from 8/19 …

1 week later: how did our first round of optimizations go?

After making the initial updates to the old homepage on 8/12, including adjusting its title tag and adding more contextual and navigational links pointing to the new domain, Google rewarded us!

The next day, Google began showing the new homepage in search results more regularly for branded navigational queries. (Keep in mind, when the old homepage started showing back up on 8/11, the new homepage was nowhere to be found.)

But there was a catch …

Even though the new domain’s homepage was now showing in search results, it was still ranking below the old domain’s homepage.

On desktop, the order of organic results and SERP features would typically go:

1. Old Domain’s Homepage
2. People Also Ask
3. New Domain’s Homepage
4. Indented Result for a Related Page on the New Domain

There was also a product knowledge panel on the right side of the SERP with reviews and links to retailers.

On mobile results, it was the same scenario, except that the product knowledge panel was in between the first result and the People Also Ask, which pushed the new domain’s homepage down even further.

Over time, would the new homepage overtake the old one? I’ve seen this scenario before with site migrations, where Google continues to reference the old domain’s homepage for a while and places the new domain’s homepage below it in the search results. However, in those cases, the old homepage 301 redirected to the new one.

In this case, we wanted to limit visits to the old homepage because it wasn’t redirecting, and we wanted people to learn about and visit the new domain as quickly as possible.

A couple of passing thoughts we had:

What if we noindexed or 404/410’d the old homepage?

Eh, sure, that would remove it from search results, and likely allow the new homepage to garner the majority of those clicks for navigational branded searches. However, the old homepage has a lot of backlinks pointing to it, as well as is likely added to some people’s favorites. So this wouldn’t be the best user experience or method for transferring link-equity to the new domain.

What if we temporarily removed the old homepage from search results via Google Search Console to increase the visibility of the new homepage until we can at least add our JavaScript redirect?

Spicy, but worth a shot, as long as we monitor the situation closely.

We took this action on 8/14.

The logic goes: since the new homepage was appearing below the old homepage, temporarily removing the old homepage would likely allow the new homepage to take the #1 position for those branded navigational queries.

Furthermore, unlike a noindex tag or 404 status code, a temporary removal of the old homepage wouldn’t negate any signals, such as that canonical tag we added hoping to have the old homepage be canonicalized to the new one (you know, the tag that Google wasn’t recognizing yet lol).

Additionally, even if the new homepage doesn’t necessarily have the same level of visibility as the old homepage right away, removing the option to visit the old homepage could help consolidate more clicks and user engagement for the new homepage, which would only help with us in trying to get it recognized as the canonical version, as well as build user awareness about the new domain.

Of course, Google says NOT to do this temporary removal tactic in its help documentation, at least for this purpose.

However, that advice is more in reference to different versions of the same domain, like www. vs. non-www. or http vs. https.

Besides, if you look at the recommended methods of canonicalization linked in that suggestion, it mentions a rel=”canonical” tag (check!), sitemap (check!), and redirects (can’t!).

Note: As mentioned, we’re hoping to try applying a JavaScript redirect on the old homepage to send users to the new homepage. The question is would Google would see and honor that type of redirect?

Most likely, yes. When Googlebot became evergreen in 2019, this allowed it to support different JavaScript redirects. If we’re able to enable this (fingers crossed!), it could help canonicalize the new domain’s homepage, where our addition of the canonical tag has so far fallen short.

We hoped to get this JavaScript redirect implemented shortly, in which case we’d remove the temporary removal of the old homepage. We were also still pursuing DNS access. 🙂

Having said all of that, how was the organic search performance of the old and new domains since doing that temporary removal of the old homepage on 8/14?

Update on both websites’ performance

First up, let’s look at the old domain from 8/1 (migration day) to our latest (partial) data on 8/18:

We see how the site’s traffic dwindled to nearly nothing by 8/10 but then started climbing back on 8/11 when the old homepage started ranking #1 again for those branded navigational queries. Then on 8/14, we can see the traffic dip back down as the homepage was temporarily removed.

Those handful of daily clicks since that homepage removal are to another webpage on the old domain (and all from branded queries), but since this page 301 redirects to the new domain, we know those users are being sent to the correct place.

And here’s the traffic for the new domain from 8/1 to 8/18:

We see how it started picking up after the migration, reached a pinnacle on 8/10 on par with historical traffic levels, then dipped down again as the old homepage surged back to position #1. Then on 8/14, the day the old homepage was temporarily removed, we see the clicks start climbing back up.

Now, the data from 8/18 shows a dip, but it’s also partial data, and Friday through Sunday tends to be lower traffic days of the week for the site.

Another question is whether the amount of traffic to the new domain is comparable to the old domain since 8/14.

Let’s compare the data from 8/15-8/17 vs. the previous site’s average.

The new domain averaged 31 clicks/day over that 3-day time. The old domain had 3 clicks/day, which means actual traffic to the new domain was about 34 clicks/day.

During the same days of the week in July, pre-migration, the old domain averaged 36 clicks/day from 7-25-7/27. This matches the historical average for that website.

Keep in mind that the new domain’s homepage often ranks #1 on desktop for a main branded navigational query. Still, on mobile, the position fluctuates between being above and below a product knowledge panel and People also ask results.

Here are some of the new homepage’s average positions for navigational branded queries on desktop as of 8/18:

And here are positions for similar queries on mobile for 8/18:

All that’s to say, the temporary removal of the old website’s homepage did have the intended effect of increasing traffic for the new website’s homepage, as well as its position for branded navigational queries.

The actual traffic levels are still slightly lower than the historical average with 31 (34 actual) vs. 36. But we’ll need more data to say for sure.

A quick update a day later on 8/20 …

1 day later: quick status check

We saw more signs of improvement still. According to Google Search Console, the new domain’s homepage was ranking #1 on mobile and desktop for the primary branded navigational query on 8/19. Granted, this is only partial data, but it’s a promising change.

What about indexation?

In terms of indexed pages, the new domain has been at 103 since August 15th, with the last data update on August 18th. Compare that to the 125 indexed pages of the previous domain (a difference of 22, but also consider that not every page was brought over or made indexable).

What about the old website version? The number of indexed pages dropped to 60 on August 8th, to 54 on August 12th, and then to 48 on August 15th, coincidentally the same day as the new site’s pages increased slightly from 101 to 103. August 15th was also the date of the latest update to the pages with redirect count, which now is 143. Subtract the original 51, and we’re at 92 new redirects since the migration out of 125 originally indexed pages. That leaves around 33 pages, which is similar to our 22 difference on the indexed page count.

It’s also interesting that the latest updates to the indexed page counts and redirected page counts happened on the 15th, the day after we temporarily removed the homepage.

In terms of pages ranking from the old domain, 18 pages had impressions registered since 8/15 (as of 8/19’s data). Only four pages had more than 5 impressions, though, and only one page had more than 9 impressions — significantly more with 570, as well as 10 clicks; however, this page had a 301 redirect in place and primarily got branded traffic from ranking in positions 8+ for the same queries the new homepage often appeared for.

Next steps

If we were able to implement a JavaScript redirect that Googlebot can follow, we’d likely take away the temporary removal of the old homepage because at that point any traffic from that page will still benefit the new domain.

If we’re not able to add the JS redirect, we’ll likely keep the temporary removal in place and closely monitor the traffic and rankings for the new homepage.

Also, we’ll be reaching out to some of the websites with the most relevant and highly visited webpages that have backlinks pointing to the old domain (especially the homepage) and asking that they be updated to the new domain.

Furthermore, we’ll be optimizing the new domain to improve its visibility for other branded and non-branded queries the homepage wouldn’t appear for, thus ensuring we’re increasing organic traffic levels through ongoing SEO work.

Update a week later on 8/26 …

2 week update: post JavaScript redirect

And now for the event we’ve all been waiting for, the JavaScript redirect!

On 8/22, we were able to enable the JavaScript redirect from the old homepage to the new homepage. A quick check with Ayima’s Redirect Path tool confirmed it was working as intended. With this redirect in place, we removed the temporary removal on the old homepage. Since users could no longer visit the old homepage, we had no qualms about it appearing in search results, even if this meant trading off some of the traffic and ranking gains for the new homepage in the short term.

As expected, traffic to the old homepage climbed back up. It went from 0 clicks on 8/21, to 3 on 8/22, and then to 19 on 8/23, about matching the 20 clicks we saw it have previously.

As for its rankings for branded navigational queries, it quickly climbed back up to the #1 spot for many, but also occasionally landed below the new homepage in the #2 spot.

As expected, with the rise of the old homepage came a decline in clicks to the new homepage.

That said, the new homepage still held is improved position for branded navigational queries, often appearing below the old homepage, but sometimes above it as well.

Ok, that’s all kind of meh.

But here’s where things get exciting!

Remember how we weren’t sure if Google could recognize that JavaScript redirect?

And remember how Google wasn’t honoring our canonical tag?

Well, here’s what Google Search Console has to say about the old homepage as of today (8/25):

And oh, by the way, did I mention a search for the main navigational branded query now returned the new homepage only, with the sitelinks again?

Suffice it to say, we had our hearts broken before on 8/11, a day that will live in infamy.

But, as of then, things were looking up!

“I must leave it behind”

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the project through …

Sometimes, that’s the nature of these agency engagements. But fortunately, we were able to resolve the problem as best we could under the circumstances.

I also still have access to the old domain’s URL prefix GSC account, where we can see that the homepage hasn’t received any clicks and only 32 impressions globally since 8/27 till today:

I hope to create more fun case studies like this, and I hope you were able to learn something along the way!

Till next time, here’s a solid outro song:

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing! 🙂