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After performing redirect to a new domain

I tried to inspect the old domain URL from its webmaster and I got this info

URL is not on Google This page is not in the index, but not because of an error. See the details below to learn why it wasn't indexed. Learn more

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Is it normal?

If yes, so why I am still losing my rank in google search?

Also, I would like to know What's the difference between the Referring Page and User-declared canonical?

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Google doesn't index redirecting pages and that is perfectly normal. Google is saying that the new domain is the preferred equivalent URL and that it isn't going to index the old domain because of the redirect.

There is nothing in what you posted that would indicate why your rankings are dropping. Google usually preserves rankings when changing domain name using 301 redirects. Especially if you used the Google Search Console change of address tool. For further help with ranking drops see How to diagnose a search engine ranking drop?

User-declared canonical

The user-declared canonical is what you (the user) have told Google (declared) to be the preferred URL (canonical). In this case you used a redirect to tell Google about the preferred URL.

Google has the ability to choose a different canonical than the one that you indicate. If Google chooses a different URL, it would tell you in the "Google-selected canonical" field.

Referring page

The referring page is where Google found a link to your URL. In this case Google says there is none. I wouldn't necessarily believe that though. Google doesn't do a very accurate job of reporting referring URLs in my experience.

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  • Thank you for your awesome answer, just one point please **Why I am getting "couldn't fetch" error for site map in the old site is it normal? more details at webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/127716/…
    – Mohamed El-Qassas MVP
    Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 11:50
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    Sitemaps have little to nothing to do with rankings or even which pages Google chooses to index. See The Sitemap Paradox I have no idea why Google can't fetch your sitemap, but unless Googlebot is having problems with your actual pages, I wouldn't worry about it.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 11:59
  • Sitemap URL for the old site doesn't perform a redirect, and google can't find it in the old site directory, for that, I have decided to upload it manually from the new site to the old site, but I only have a site map with the new domain URL! Is it correct to upload the new sitemap to the old directory to can fetch it? in this case, the url will be the same but the domain name is changed!
    – Mohamed El-Qassas MVP
    Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 12:20
  • BTW, when I performed the move I have changed permalinks from https://domainname/date/blog URL to https://domainname/blog URL without a date for SEO! and the redirect is working great! Is it will affect ranking?
    – Mohamed El-Qassas MVP
    Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 12:26
  • There is always a risk when implementing redirects that it will cost you some rankings. However, with proper redirects in place and using the change of address tool, changing URLs doesn't usually affect rankings, it shouldn't matter that you removed the date.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 12:45

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