What happened
In December 2018, a user asked John Mueller from Google whether changing hosting affects search positions.
The question was triggered by a case where a webmaster moved a website to Cloudflare and then saw ranking drops. The conclusion in that case was direct: hosting migration caused the drop.
What Mueller said
Mueller disagreed with that conclusion:
Changing website hosting can lead to temporary slower crawling by Googlebot, but it does not affect rankings.
In other words, Google may intentionally reduce crawl frequency right after server migration to make sure the new environment can handle load. Then crawl speed returns to normal automatically.
Why rankings may drop in reality
If rankings decline after migration, hosting itself is usually not the reason. Check the following:
| Likely reason | What to check |
|---|---|
| Slower server response | PageSpeed Insights, Core Web Vitals |
| Migration errors | 404s, broken links, sitemap |
| SSL issues | HTTPS availability, redirect logic |
| Temporary downtime | Uptime during migration |
| Code/content changes | Before/after comparison |
Ranking drops often happen at the same time as hosting migration, but are caused by other changes done during the same period.
What to do during migration
To avoid traffic loss, follow these steps:
- Make a full backup before migration
- Test loading speed on the new server before switching DNS
- Avoid other major website changes during migration
- Monitor Google Search Console for 2-4 weeks after launch
- Do not panic over short-term fluctuations in the first days
Google's conclusion
The official position remains the same: hosting is not a direct ranking factor as long as the website is technically accessible and fast enough. Moving to another provider, server, or CDN is an infrastructure decision, not a quality signal.