{"id":23799,"date":"2025-09-19T12:36:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/?post_type=cases&p=23799"},"modified":"2025-10-07T14:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:02:11","slug":"organic-recovery-to-organic-growth","status":"publish","type":"cases","link":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/cases\/organische-herstel-tot-organische-groei\/","title":{"rendered":"Organic recovery? Organic growth!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At a glance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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  • Recovering organic traffic six months after a poor SEO migration<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Bringing the organic lead flow for this client back to previous levels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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    • Organic traffic grown above pre-launch levels<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Number of leads from organic traffic is again at such a high level that the ad tap can be closed a little more<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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      Starting point<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      This client's website is a platform with leasing offers of cars especially in the financial lease model. Due to a failed or faulty SEO migration, the platform had lost 80% to 90% of daily organic clicks. They knocked on our door asking if we could rectify this, as this was seriously costing leads! And therefore also Google Ads ad budget, as the number of reduced organic leads had to be absorbed anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      We opted for a SEO migration recovery project, also to prove to this client that, with the right technical changes, we could already take back some of the organic traffic. We could then possibly build out the traffic again at a later stage in a monthly trajectory (spoiler: ended up doing so). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Disclaimer<\/strong>: the client wishes to remain anonymous due to sensitivity towards competitors. In this case, we therefore refer to 'the client'<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

      SEO migration retrofit fix: method<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      We could see pretty clearly in the pre-project phase that Google had little understanding of the move. Also zonder Search Console access. We then discussed in a short kick-off with this client and the builder of the new platform what migrated and changed about the platform during going live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      We then drafted the SEO migration recovery recommendation and discussed it with the developer in two stages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      • 1st actions<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Follow-up actions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

        Phase 1: initial actions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

        During this phase, we wanted to brief the most important technical changes to the developers in advance, as there was obviously no time to lose. We analysed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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        • Search Console (page indexing)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Crawls of the platform with Screaming Frog and Lumar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

          We also compared the new situation in terms of content on the main landings with information from the Web Archive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          This roughly rolled out a number of recommendations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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          • Internal linking via navigation referred to URL parameter URLs > adjust to clean URLs (across the whole website)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Canonical tags referred to the part in the URL before the URL parameter > the internal link adjustment made the canonicals correct again<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • URL parameters were excluded in Robots.txt > we removed this 'disallow' and after 3 weeks we implemented specific URL parameter exclusions<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • There were many redirect chains > break up these chains and redirect directly to the final destination<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • There were many redirects, but many of them were not specific enough > adjust redirects as yet and redirect to the most specific match possible (e.g. 'Audi RS3' not to 'Audi', but to 'Audi RS3')<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • There were many 404s getting hits > the biggest 404s of these redirect to the correct new destination<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Updating the footer navigation again to focus on brands and models<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Content had disappeared on many pages, whereas it had not before going live > on key landings, reinstate this content (starting with brands and then brand + model)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

            Second phase<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

            The first migration recovery phase revolved around the changes that were also going to directly affect crawling \/ indexing of the platform. In the second phase, we also included the other areas of improvement in a comprehensive plan. The main onder parts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            • Include vehicle detail pages in a separate XML Sitemap<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Self-referencing canonical tags on paginated pages<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Improve crawlability of paginated pages <\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • 404s fix vehicle detail pages<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Resize images automatically<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Adjusting header structures<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Customise\/implement structured data templates<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Adding appropriate content to key landings (type of cars, etc.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Cornerstone approach on brand pages<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Blog content written for top of the funnel onderwerp to link internally to key SEO landings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

              Changes from the first phase were also reflected in this, but these were onderween also partially addressed. We prioritised all possible areas for improvement (whether technical points or content improvements), so it was clear what we wanted to work on first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Implementation and outcome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

              There was a test environment in place and fortunately a direct line ran from our customer team to the web builder. This meant we were able to quickly check technical improvements so they could go to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              With this kind of SEO migration recovery project, we have no patience as there is no time to waste. Fortunately, Google picked up on the changes quickly. After a few weeks, we saw another big increase in impressions and clicks:<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n

              \r\n\r\n \r\n \"\"\r\n\r\n \r\n
              <\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n

              Proof that even after six months, a SEO migration recovery project definitely makes sense. We gave the search engine clarity and opted for a consistent setup. We were then able to build on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              SEO route<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

              In the months following the SEO migration recovery, we had two priorities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n