SIX MONTHS AFTER THE CONTRACT ENDED

Our work with the company ended in early April 2026. By then the site ranked for 357 keywords and was cited in AI search, and the Google Business Profile had moved from positions 17–21 into the top 5 for its strongest keywords. Six months later we checked what was left. The website and the profile tell two different stories.

The Website: What Happened After the Rebuild

By May, Semrush estimated the site at about 480 organic visits a month and 670+ ranking keywords, close to the 500+ sessions we had projected in Part 1.

In summer 2026 the website was rebuilt on a new platform with a new URL structure. We were not involved in the rebuild and no longer have access to Search Console, so everything below comes from public third-party data and a manual check of the live site.

About 89% of the remaining traffic comes from one branded search. People who already know the company still find it. People searching for a cleaning service mostly don’t.

What We Found

The pages were moved to new addresses (for example, /house-cleaning/ became /services/house-cleaning/), but the old addresses were not redirected.

For Google, a page that returns 404 is a page that no longer exists. Its rankings, its backlinks and its history do not transfer to the new address on their own. That is the job of a 301 redirect.

This Is Not About the Tool

We use AI in our own work every day, and we like working with clients who are curious and hands-on. Today anyone can generate a good-looking website in an evening. What a generator does not know is which of your old pages were ranking and what will break when their addresses change.

A redesign is a migration, and a migration has a checklist.

We advise, and the decision always belongs to the client. Sometimes we don’t manage to get the point across. This is what it can cost.

About the New Backlinks

Over the same months, referring domains grew from 119 to 462. Many of the new anchors are generic link-service phrases, not the brand name or cleaning terms. We don’t know where these links came from. In our experience, links like these do not bring lost rankings back: Google mostly ignores them, and in worse cases they lead to a manual action. Authority Score went from 17 to 15 over the period.

Can It Be Fixed?

Before You Redesign: The Minimum

• Export every URL that gets traffic or has backlinks
• Map each one to a new page and set 301 redirects
• Keep titles, headings and core content on pages that rank
• Publish a new sitemap and submit it in Search Console
• Watch 404 reports and rankings for the first 4–6 weeks

Figures in this section are Semrush estimates for the US database, retrieved in October 2026. Live URL checks were done on October 5, 2026. Screenshots below: organic traffic, organic keywords and referring domains (Semrush). Click any screenshot to enlarge.

The Google Business Profile, Six Months Later

The website is only half of this story. Nobody on our side has worked on the Google Business Profile since April either, so in October we ran the same local reports we used during the campaign.

On the Map, the Profile Held Its Ground

Five of eight tracked keywords improved, one held and two slipped. The broad searches moved the most: “cleaning service near me” went from 11.1 to 7.4 and “house cleaning service near me” from 12.6 to 8.8.

Reviews kept coming in as well. The profile now has 200 Google reviews, up from 151 in March. That part is the company’s own work.

Activity Stayed Flat

During the campaign year the profile averaged about 320 views and 90 actions a month. In the last 30 days it was viewed 563 times and brought 90 actions: 49 website clicks, 32 direction requests and 9 calls. More people see the profile than before, but the number of people who act on it has not grown.

Where It Stopped Growing

The map is only part of local search. In regular Google results, where the website and the profile work together, the business now appears in the local pack for 1 of 13 tracked searches, and its average organic position slid from around 45 in March to outside the top 50. The timing matches the site rebuild described above.

The groundwork needs upkeep too. With nobody maintaining the listings, the Key Citation Score fell from 57 to 48, and five key directories now show the business with errors in its name, address or phone number.

Two Clients, Same Ending, Different Results

Local SEO results last after the work stops. They don’t maintain themselves.

Listings drift, rankings in regular search follow the website, and growth needs someone working on it.

Data: local search grid and BrightLocal reports (Rank Tracker, Citation Tracker, Local Search Audit) generated October 2, 2026; Google Business Profile insights for the 30 days to October 12, 2026. March figures come from Part 1. Screenshots below: profile views and actions, citations and local search audit, rank tracker overview. Click any screenshot to enlarge.