SEO · Case study
Recovering Organic Traffic After a Site Migration Went Wrong
A site migration had quietly cut organic traffic. Full recovery protocol: redirect mapping, index cleanup and template fixes restored and then exceeded pre-migration levels.
Technical SEO · run personally by Hasnain Jameel
The situation
What was actually going wrong
Organic traffic collapsed sharply after a site migration. Rankings that had taken years to build disappeared within weeks, and analytics gaps meant nobody could tell how bad the damage actually was or which sections were worst affected.
The work
What I changed
Damage measured before anything was changed
Analytics and Search Console were repaired first, because a recovery without measurement is guesswork. Tracking gaps were hiding the true scope of the loss.
Redirect mapping audited URL by URL
Incorrect and chained redirects were the primary cause. Every legacy URL with traffic or links was mapped to its correct destination rather than defaulted to the homepage.
Indexation restored
Crawl errors, missing canonical signals and orphaned pages were fixed so search engines could rediscover the site’s structure.
On-page signals rebuilt
Titles, meta descriptions, headings and internal linking were restored on the pages that had previously earned rankings, and strong pages were linked to commercial URLs deliberately.
The outcome
What it produced
Most migration disasters are redirect problems, and most are recoverable. The expensive part is the time spent not realising what broke.
Straight answers
Questions about this work
Overwhelmingly, redirect errors: missing redirects, chains, or everything pointed at the homepage. Template and content changes are usually secondary.
Once redirects and indexation are corrected, meaningful recovery often begins within weeks and substantially completes over a few months, depending on site size.
A full URL inventory, a mapped redirect plan tested before launch, and analytics verified on day one rather than a fortnight later.
Work with me
Let’s find the money you’re leaving on the table.
Tell me where growth feels stuck. Usually within the hour you will have my honest read on what’s leaking, what it’s costing you, and whether I’m the right person to fix it. No pitch deck, no pressure.
Performance marketing consultant for clinics and DTC brands across Dubai and the UK. Paid media, landing pages, tracking and creative, accountable to revenue.