Worked example
The move went wrong: which links did we lose?
Redirect maps break quietly. This page walks a made-up shop through the comparison that finds the leak, with numbers labelled as an example and nothing borrowed from a real client.
Start with the two profiles side by side
After a move, the old domain still owns the history. Nobody warns you about that. Links keep pointing at the old address for months, and the only question is whether each one lands on a working page.
So view backlinks for both domains on the same day and keep the files. Referring domains that show up on the old name and are missing on the new one are your candidates for repair. The rest is detail.
Expect delay on the new name. Our index refreshes roughly once a month, and Google reprocesses links on its own schedule, so the new domain will look thin for a while even when everything is set up correctly.
Did traffic also fall on pages that were not moved? Then link your findings back to the first-week audit. A migration and a link problem can overlap, and separating them saves a lot of misplaced effort. The monthly routine keeps score after the fix.
Hypothetical example: Lantern & Loom, a made-up rug shop
| Measure | Old domain, before the move | New domain, ten weeks later |
|---|---|---|
| Referring domains | 412 | 287 |
| Top page by links | /guides/natural-dye | /guides/natural-dye (301 to the right URL) |
| Second page by links | /blog/rug-sizes | 404 |
| Anchors: brand name share | 58% | 61% |
How the leak shows up in that example
Count the gap
412 versus 287 is 125 domains short. Some of that is the crawl lag, but not all of it.
Open the top pages on the old side
The toppages call lists the URLs that attract links. The rug-sizes post ranks second and now returns a 404 on the new site.
Fix the page, not the link
Restore the post or redirect it to its closest equivalent. Asking every linker to update is slow and rarely needed.
Re-check next month
If the referring-domain count on the new name climbs toward the old one, the repair is working.
Close the loop with a reference file
Store the old-versus-new table in your project folder. Next month's run adds a row, and soon you have a chart instead of an argument.
The same two requests for your own move
The first is free. The second costs 2 credits per call.
curl "https://backlinkphoenix.com/api.php?action=overview&q=old-domain.com"
curl "https://backlinkphoenix.com/api.php?action=overview&q=new-domain.com"
curl "https://backlinkphoenix.com/api.php?action=toppages&q=old-domain.com&per=100&key=sk_live_..."Leak list for the week after a move
- Every old top-linked URL answers 200 or a single 301 hop
- No redirect chains longer than one step
- Old sitemap removed, new one submitted in Search Console
- Change of Address tool used if the domain really changed
- Canonical tags point at the new domain, not the old
- Brand-name pages (about, contact) redirect one-to-one, not to the homepage
Questions that follow a bad move
- Should I keep the old domain registered?
- Yes, for years rather than months. The redirects only work while you control the old name, and links keep arriving there long after launch. Letting it lapse also hands the history to whoever registers it next.
- How long until rankings return after a redesign or move?
- It varies by site size and how clean the redirect map is. Some sites settle in weeks, larger ones take a few months. Watch referring domains and indexed pages in Search Console instead of waiting for a single date.
- Is a temporary ranking dip after migration normal?
- Yes, usually. A dip while Google reprocesses the new URLs is expected. A dip that deepens after eight to ten weeks suggests a leak, and the comparison above is how you look for it.