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

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/ (f8aa3211, Mar 12), "Rename Learn tab to Capabilities with full restructure" (6dedbd18, Mar 20), guides/ removed (bca618d5, Mar 24).
• 2026-03-20: "clean up docs.json redirects" (3463b233).
• 2026-04-03: "Fix all missing redirects and split docs.json config" (74a19995). 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 (#3624).
• 2026-07-13: second restructure, new Platform group, teams/security paths moved (#3542). It reintroduced a redirect bug (#3611) fixed on Jul 16 (#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.

Start with the GSC evidence and the docs.json redirect history described in the issue, including the listed migrated URLs. No specific file to change or test to run is named; the stated outcome is to preserve the findings and timeline while handling broken links, CI redirect checks, and the missing redirect in separate follow-up issues.