<b>Q: We moved domains 3 weeks ago and traffic is still down — is that normal?</b>

<b>Q: We moved domains 3 weeks ago and traffic is still down — is that normal?</b>

Yes, and this worries a lot of people, so here's the deal.

Short answer: three weeks is early. A flat-to-slow recovery now is expected, not a red flag — yet.

Long answer: Google has to recrawl the old URLs, see the 301s, then transfer signals to the new ones. For a small site that's days; for a big one with deep pages it can run 4 to 8 weeks, sometimes longer for the long tail. A 10 to 20 percent dip that's slowly closing is a healthy curve. What's NOT normal: a dip that's getting worse, or pages dropping out of the index entirely.

Next step: in Search Console, check that your top old URLs report "Page with redirect" and the new ones are "Indexed." If yes, you're on track — give it to week 6 before worrying.