Case Study DMO Disaster

Written By David Tucker

Website Development Crash and Burn

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Rescuing a Major Ski Destination’s Website After a Catastrophic Traffic Loss

A major ski destination DMO faced a devastating SEO crisis after launching a new website—losing nearly all of its search engine equity and traffic overnight.

📉 Traffic Drop: From 13,000+ visitors per day to fewer than 1,000
📉 Backlink Authority Lost – The new site failed to retain valuable search engine rankings and external link equity.
📉 Indexing Issues & Poor Redirect Strategy – No proper redirects, causing broken search listings and deindexed pages.
📉 Loss of Blog Traffic – The blog was migrated to an external domain, leading to a massive loss of organic traffic.

With ski season rapidly approaching, an immediate technical SEO reboot was critical to recovery.

Strategy & Execution

✅ Technical SEO & Server-Level Fixes:

  • Conducted a full site audit to uncover technical issues affecting performance.

  • Resolved platform and server misconfigurations that were preventing proper indexing.

✅ Rebuilding the Redirect Structure:

  • Implemented a comprehensive 301 redirect strategy to reclaim lost search engine value.

  • Recovered valuable backlinks and restored high-ranking URLs that had been improperly removed.

✅ Enhanced Indexing & Structured Data Implementation:

  • Worked with developers to implement XML sitemaps and schema markup to ensure Google could efficiently crawl and index the site.

  • Expanded search listings visibility through structured data enhancements.

✅ Recovering Blog Traffic & Domain Structure Fix:

  • Identified that the blog migration to an external domain had caused a major drop in organic traffic.

  • Moved the blog back in-house as a subdirectory, restoring topical relevance and internal linking power.

✅ Strategic Content Marketing & SEO Expansion:

  • Launched a gap-filling content strategy, targeting high-value keywords the site had lost during the migration.

  • Expanded SEO efforts into summer outdoor activities, capitalizing on off-season search trends to drive year-round traffic growth.

Results

✔️ Full Traffic Recovery in 90 Days – Traffic returned to pre-migration levels just in time for the start of ski season.
✔️ 50% Growth in 12 Months – Due to our focus on untapped summer search opportunities, the site grew an additional 50% year-over-year.
✔️ Restored Search Rankings & Backlink Value – The proper redirect structure allowed the site to reclaim its lost rankings and authority.
✔️ Expanded Seasonal Reach – By focusing on summer outdoor search queries, the resort successfully increased year-round engagement.

Timeline: 90-Day Recovery + 12 Months of Growth

This case study highlights the critical importance of SEO best practices during a website migration—and how a strategic technical and content-driven approach can not only recover lost traffic but drive long-term growth. 🚀

David Tucker
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