I Switched Domains Based on ChatGPT's Advice and Lost All My Google Rankings (4 Month Migration Case Study)

In late 2025, I revived a project I'd put on hold for years. I had two domains: hostedstatus.page - Ranking #1-3 for "hosted status page" on all search engines statuspage.me - Sitting unused since 2018 I asked ChatGPT: "Which domain should I use?" ChatGPT said: "statuspage.me is catchier and more memorable. Switch to it." I trusted the AI. I did a proper domain migration: 301 redirects from hostedstatus.page → statuspage.me Google Search Console domain change notification Bing Webmaster Tools migration Yandex domain change Everything by the book. Four months later: Google: Invisible (page 10+) DuckDuckGo: Page 1, position #3 Bing: Multiple page 1 rankings ChatGPT: Citing my content Here's what actually happened when I migrated domains — and why different search engines behave so differently. The Setup I've been building StatusPage.me - a status page and monitoring service for indie hackers, SMBs, SaaS companies, etc. The product differentiates through indie-first pricing, an OSS Hero p