I’m going to speculate that the already complicated politics of the original site didn’t leave much room for the Protestant pilgrims so they eventually just found their own alternate site :)
If you read the entire piece, the author states he believes the original site is more than likely the real deal.
I also think that is correct.
I also think the Shroud of Turin is real.
I am very skeptical of the “true cross” however - but anything is possible.
From the article
“For the first few decades after Jesus’ resurrection, the existence of the empty tomb must have been instrumental in spreading the Gospel. If the tomb held a dead body, or if its location was unknown, people would not likely have believed the Gospel was true in the first place. I’ve personally heard secular historians say there is no way to explain the quick spread of Christianity unless there was an actual empty tomb they could point to.
This might also explain why, in 135 A.D., the Roman Emperor Hadrian quickly filled the tomb with soil and built a pagan temple on top of Golgotha. Why in 135? Because at that time, Hadrian had recently destroyed Jerusalem after the Bar-Kochba Revolt and expelled all the Jews and Christians. He built a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, on its ruins. He erected pagan temples on top of both the Temple Mount and Golgotha. But this deliberate desecration of holy places had an unexpected effect – his actions helped preserve the knowledge of the tomb’s location. He also extended the walls around Aelia Capitolina to include this temple, which, during the time of Jesus, had been outside the city walls.
...Protestants raised doubts about the authenticity of the site almost from the start of the Reformation. Questioning old belief systems in light of the scriptures was their thing, and casting doubt on this claim was no different. We see a number of criticisms in the 17th century, but they began to proliferate even more in the 19th century when more and more Protestants came to see the holy site.”