SEO impact of the March IA restructure: docs search impressions down ~45% since mid-July (findings + timeline)

[tpayet]

Summary

Google Search Console shows a sharp, persistent drop in docs search visibility that correlates with the documentation restructures. This issue documents the findings so the timeline and evidence are in one place. Follow-up actions are split into separate issues (see bottom).

GSC evidence (property sc-domain:meilisearch.com)

• Docs pages (page contains /docs/) went from ~28-30K impressions per weekday in early July to ~16-17K from July 17-18, 2026 onward, and have not recovered as of August 30.
• Old-structure URLs are gone from search results and the new URLs recovered only part of the traffic, with worse average positions. March vs August comparison:
  • /docs/guides/docker: 526 clicks -> replaced by /docs/resources/self_hosting/getting_started/docker: 271 clicks, position 4.0 -> 9.5
  • /docs/learn/self_hosted/install_meilisearch_locally: 468 clicks -> /docs/resources/self_hosting/getting_started/install_locally: 264 clicks, position 3.0 -> 5.7
  • /docs/home (565 clicks), /docs/guides/running_production (205), /docs/learn/getting_started/indexes (181), /docs/learn/security/basic_security (170): old URLs at zero, replacements not in top pages
• Sitewide (not only docs): clicks ~1,000/weekday in March vs ~700 in August (-32%), impressions -25%. Part of this is a market-wide decline in branded search demand (the query "meilisearch" holds position 1.5 with stable CTR but has -38% impressions), which is unrelated to the restructure. The docs cliff is the part we control.

Timeline reconstructed from this repo

• 2026-03-12 to 2026-03-24: IA restructure on main: resources/ created from learn/ (f8aa321, Mar 12), "Rename Learn tab to Capabilities with full restructure" (6dedbd1, Mar 20), guides/ removed (bca618d, Mar 24).
• 2026-03-20: "clean up docs.json redirects" (3463b23).
• 2026-04-03: "Fix all missing redirects and split docs.json config" (74a1999). The /learn/* and /guides/* redirects only became complete here, meaning roughly 10 days to 3 weeks where old URLs were not all redirecting.
• 2026-07-09: redirect-checking CI removed (Remove redirection CI #3624).
• 2026-07-13: second restructure, new Platform group, teams/security paths moved (Add capabilities/platform documentation #3542). It reintroduced a redirect bug (API ref of update-settings-of-a-chat-workspace redirects to docs home page #3611) fixed on Jul 16 (Update redirects.json #3629).
• 2026-07-15 to 18: GSC impressions cliff. Google appears to have consolidated the migration at this point, dropping old URLs without fully transferring rankings to the new ones.

Current state (verified 2026-08-31)

All 121 pre-restructure /learn/* and /guides/* URLs were tested live: 120 return a 308 Permanent Redirect chain ending on a 200 page. One returns a hard 404 (see linked issue). So redirect coverage is essentially correct today; the damage is Google re-ranking the new URLs lower than the old ones.

Recommendations

1. No further URL restructures for a while. Every move resets Google's evaluation of the page.
2. Monitor GSC weekly for position recovery on the migrated docs pages (docker, install, indexes, security pages).
3. Follow-up issues: fix broken internal links, restore redirect checking in CI, add the one missing redirect.

Found while auditing GSC data with Claude; happy to share the underlying data.