Google search traffic after a platform move: movers vs matched sites that stayed
| Months | Any drop | Down 10%+ | Down 25%+ | Stayers 10%+ | Stayers 25%+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 2 | 55.2% | 47.2% | 34.8% | 32.4% | 19.6% |
| 3 to 5 | 51.5% | 45.3% | 36.6% | 36.0% | 24.4% |
| 6 to 8 | 47.8% | 42.8% | 34.5% | 36.6% | 26.6% |
| 12 to 14 | 48.4% | 43.1% | 36.0% | 38.8% | 30.4% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, Nov 2026. Moves between Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and BigCommerce, 2021 to 2026. Any drop, down 10%+ and down 25%+ are movers: the share below, 10% or more below and 25% or more below their traffic before the move (3,266 movers at 0 to 5 months, 3,060 at 6 to 8, 2,650 at 12 to 14).
Summary
Ask an AI assistant how long search traffic takes to come back after you move your site to a new platform, and you will usually hear a few months. We asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity that question 252 times, then checked what happened to 3,266 sites that made the same moves.
The answers were consistent: 90.7% opened with a timeline of 3 months or less, with a median of 2.8 months, and only 1 mentioned a year or longer. The sites told a slower story. 3 to 5 months after the move, 51.5% were still below their old Google traffic, and 36.6% were down by a quarter or more, against 24.4% of matched sites that stayed put.
What we measured
On 4 November 2026 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity how long search traffic takes to recover after moving between Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and BigCommerce: 12 platform pairs, each in 3 phrasings, for 252 answers. We recorded the first timeline each answer gave and the longest one it mentioned anywhere.
We then found sites that made those same 12 moves between 2021 and 2026 in HTTP Archive crawls, and compared each site's estimated monthly Google search traffic after the move with the average of the 3 months before it. Only sites with meaningful traffic before the move count. Each mover was compared with matched sites on the same platform, of similar popularity, over the same months.
Two limits matter. Traffic figures are estimates that drift upward over time, so we report shares of sites against a matched control, not average change. And some long-tail moves are expired domains taken over by someone new.
AI answers put recovery at about 3 months
Of 252 AI answers to the recovery question, 90.7% opened with a timeline of 3 months or less. The median opening timeline was 2.8 months. 99.6% never mentioned a period longer than 6 months anywhere in the answer, and only 1 of the 252 mentioned a year or more.
Across 504 answers about traffic and SEO during a platform move, 93.7% described a drop as temporary, and 12.3% said you might lose little or no traffic at all.
2.8 months
Median recovery timeline that 252 AI answers opened with when asked how long search traffic takes to come back after a platform move.
Half of movers were still below their old traffic at 3 to 5 months
Among 3,266 sites that made one of those moves, 51.5% were still below their pre-move Google traffic 3 to 5 months later, the point by which most AI answers expect a recovery. 45.3% were more than 10% down, against 36.0% of matched stayers.
The bigger losses stand out most. 36.6% of movers were down by a quarter or more, against 24.4% of stayers, a gap of 12.2 points.
The dip starts as soon as the site moves
In the first 2 months after the move, 55.2% of movers were below their old traffic and 34.8% were down by a quarter or more, against 19.6% of stayers. The median mover was at 93.3% of its old traffic while the median stayer was at 105.5%.
From there, movers improved only slowly. At 6 to 8 months, 47.8% of 3,060 movers were still below their old traffic.
A year on, many movers had still not caught up
12 to 14 months after the move, 48.4% of 2,650 movers were still below their pre-move traffic and 43.1% were more than 10% down, against 38.8% of matched stayers. 36.0% were down by a quarter or more, against 30.4% of stayers.
Some moves fared worse than others. A year on, 50.2% of 201 sites that moved from Shopify to WooCommerce were down a quarter or more, against 20.4% of stayers, and 47.1% of 410 that moved from WordPress to Wix were, against 36.7%.
Source: PageSpeed Matters. Same movers; before = average of the 3 months before the move.
Most AI answers expected a recovery by month 3.
What this means for your site
Plan for a longer dip than a quick AI answer suggests. In our data half of movers were still below their old traffic at 3 to 5 months, and many had not caught up a year later.
- Set expectations in months, not weeks. Budget for traffic below normal for at least two quarters after launch.
- Record your baseline. Keep 3 months of search traffic and rankings from before the move so you can measure the real change.
- Watch the first 8 weeks closely. The dip starts at once, and broken redirects or missing pages are easiest to fix early.
- Compare against staying put. Your traffic may drift with the season, so judge the move against where you would otherwise be.
If a move is on your roadmap, our website migration services plan the launch around your traffic baseline, rebuild every page and URL on the new platform and test redirects before the switch, so the dip after launch is as short as it can be. After launch, our SEO migration services track rankings and search traffic against that baseline for months, not weeks, and chase down lost pages, redirects and internal links, so a slow recovery is spotted before it becomes a lasting loss.
Sources
- PageSpeed Matters analysis of 252 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to questions about recovering search traffic after a platform move, collected 4 November 2026
- PageSpeed Matters analysis of platform moves seen in HTTP Archive crawls, 2021 to 2026, with monthly Google search traffic estimates to October 2026
- Google Search Central, Site moves with URL changes: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes
Frequently asked questions
How long does search traffic take to recover after a website migration?
Often longer than a few months. Of 3,266 sites that changed platform, 51.5% were still below their old Google traffic 3 to 5 months later, and 43.1% of 2,650 were still more than 10% down after a year, against 38.8% of matched sites that stayed.
What do AI assistants say about traffic recovery after a platform move?
Of 252 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, 90.7% opened with a timeline of 3 months or less, with a median of 2.8 months. Only 1 mentioned a year or longer.
Is a traffic drop after changing platforms normal?
A dip is common. In the first 2 months, 34.8% of movers were down a quarter or more, against 19.6% of matched stayers. At 3 to 5 months it was 36.6% against 24.4%, so the gap did not close quickly.