news Did change to .com kill this company's search results?

[carob]

Really interesting story about a company disappearing from Google results after changing from .ch to .com

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ing-webmail-service-search-results-protonmail

One potential cause of the collapse in ranking could be ProtonMail’s site moving domains, from protonmail.ch to protonmail.com. Such transfers can cause the collected authority attributed to the site to be lost, forcing site owners to start afresh.

Or was that just an excuse for Google to bury a competitor and ignore all their contact attempts?

 

[Kuffy]

Surely it shouldn't make any difference if you alias the name.

 

[techname]

Stories like this will unfortunately make successful companies think twice about upgrading to a better name or extension. We might see more instances where they buy the .com but just redirect to their established name like twitch.tv.

 

[Kuffy]

Stories like this will unfortunately make successful companies think twice about upgrading to a better name or extension. We might see more instances where they buy the .com but just redirect to their established name like twitch.tv.

That's fine as long as they pay a good price for the .com

 

[Jackie]

As long as the site structure of the new domain reflects the one on the old domain, SEO should not be adversely affected. Of course, things like 301 redirects and Change of Address in Google Search Console should be set up properly. But properly executed, it's possible to have domain/link authority count towards the new domain. More of an SEO issue than a domain issue.

 

[disaac81]

Might make a substantial difference to the ranking for local results in Switzerland. Although having the .com allows the company to reach the globe without geo favor. Of course, link metrics and interaction metrics will determine ranking in other geo locations, including Switzerland.

 

[carob]

Of course, things like 301 redirects and Change of Address in Google Search Console should be set up properly. But properly executed, it's possible to have domain/link authority count towards the new domain. More of an SEO issue than a domain issue.

Seems like they tried that and got ignored until they publicly accused Google of deliberately trashing them.

“All throughout spring 2016, we worked in earnest to get in touch with Google,” the company says. “We created two tickets on their web spam report form explaining the situation. We even contacted Google’s president of EMEA strategic relationships, but received no response nor improvement.”

The result of the collapse was ProtonMail’s growth rate dropping by a quarter for the affected months, something the company estimates cost it “several hundred thousand Swiss Francs”. In the end, it tried going semi-public, sending tweets to Google directly accusing the company of “intentionally hiding ProtonMail from search results”.

“After a few days,” ProtonMail writes, “Google informed us that they had ‘fixed something’ without providing further details. The results could be immediately seen.” The company’s site returned to the first page of results, where it has stayed ever since.