Google Showing Old Domain Months After Domain Move

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Muscular U-turn arrow with glowing cracked segments symbolising an old domain after migration

By NewSunSEO October 20, 2026

A website that moved to a new domain four months ago can lose traffic again, with Google suddenly re-indexing the old domain and dropping the new one into a “Crawled, currently not indexed” state. A Reddit thread documents the case in detail, and a Google search advocate has responded with two practical checks that site owners can run today.

What happened in the Reddit thread

A site owner shared a timeline that many people running migrations will recognise. The site rebranded and switched to a new domain at the start of 2026 to expand into an additional topic. Redirects were put in place and the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console was used. By April, traffic had recovered and the new domain was holding around 5,000 impressions a day.

Four months later, the picture changed. More than 5,000 pages on the new domain were moved into a “Crawled, currently not indexed” state, and impressions on the new domain dropped to roughly 20 per week. At the same time, the old domain was re-indexed, and all search impressions and clicks started showing up there in Search Console.

The site’s owner posted the case to a Reddit thread to ask what might be going on.

What a Google search advocate recommended

A Google search advocate responded on the thread and asked the site owner to send a direct message. Two pieces of advice were shared publicly:

Sometimes processing a full domain change takes longer than expected.
Make sure the Change of Address tool in Search Console is set up for both the www and non-www versions of the domain, so the move can fully migrate.

The documentation for the Change of Address tool was adjusted some time ago to spell out the need to cover both hostnames, because leaving one variant unset is a common reason a migration drags on.

Why a migration can unwind months later

The second piece of advice is straightforward to check, and it is worth verifying whether the Search Console change of address has been confirmed for both hostnames. The first piece of advice is harder. A site can look fully migrated in April and then shift again in August, with no obvious trigger from the site owner’s side.

One working theory is that a site migration triggers a fresh quality assessment, and that Google’s indexing bar has tightened since. Sites that moved in early 2026 are now being re-evaluated against a stricter standard. When Search Console shows most pages in “crawled, currently not indexed,” it usually means Google is choosing not to keep the pages in the index, not that it cannot find them. In many of these cases the site itself is in good shape, but the content does not stand apart from similar pages already on the web.

More site migration regressions have been reported over recent weeks, which suggests this is not a one-off. Anyone who moved a site in the last year should treat a sudden drop in the new domain’s impressions as a signal to audit which pages Google has stopped indexing, rather than assume the migration finished on day one.

What to do if the old domain is showing again

Check that the Change of Address tool has been submitted for both the www and non-www versions of the new domain. Confirm the status in Search Console.
Compare which URLs Google is now indexing on the old domain against the redirect map that was set up. Any URL that was supposed to redirect and is instead being served as its own result on the old hostname is a redirect that has been undone or ignored.
Look at which pages on the new domain have moved to “crawled, currently not indexed” and check whether they offer something distinct from competing pages already in the index.
Submit a sitemap for the new domain if one has not been re-submitted since the change.

Rank position across a service area is what a GEO grid report shows, and SEOScanPRO’s GEO Grids map exactly that. A site that is healthy in Search Console can still be invisible in the towns and suburbs around it, and a grid view makes that gap visible.

FAQ

Why is Google showing my old domain instead of the new one?

A change of address can take longer than expected to fully process, and leaving the www or non-www variant unset in the Search Console Change of Address tool is a common reason Google keeps serving the old hostname. Verify that the Change of Address was submitted for both versions.

How long does Google take to fully migrate a domain?

Site owners in the thread reported a stable new domain four months after migration, then a sudden reversal in which the new domain lost most of its impressions and the old domain was re-indexed. Google’s own guidance is that some migrations take a particularly long time to be fully processed.

Why are my new domain’s pages showing as “crawled, currently not indexed”?

That status means Google fetched the pages and chose not to keep them in the index. In several recent migration cases the pages were indistinguishable from other pages already being served, and Google’s quality bar for indexing has tightened through 2026.