Website Migration SEO
Our SEO site migration service plans, checks and monitors your move to a new website, platform or domain, so the rankings and links you have built carry over to the new site.
What's included
- A full inventory of your current URLs, including pages with traffic, rankings or backlinks
- A baseline of current rankings and organic traffic to compare against after launch
- A URL map pairing every old page with its best match on the new site
- 301 redirect rules ready for your developer or platform, tested before launch
- A pre-launch review of the staging site: titles, content, internal links, noindex tags and schema
- Launch day checks of redirects, robots.txt, the XML sitemap, analytics and Search Console
- A domain change request in Search Console when the domain itself changes
- Ranking and traffic monitoring after launch, with issues fixed as they appear
Who it's for
A migration is any change that alters the URLs, structure or platform search engines already know. Our SEO site migration work is for businesses that are:
- Redesigning on a new platform, such as moving from Wix or Squarespace to WordPress, or from an old custom build to Shopify.
- Changing domain after a rebrand, a merger or buying a better domain name.
- Restructuring URLs, for example moving service pages from /services/page-123 to clear names, or combining location pages.
- Merging two websites after acquiring a business or combining brands.
- Moving from HTTP to HTTPS or consolidating www and non-www versions that were never cleaned up.
- Recovering from a migration that already went wrong, where traffic dropped sharply after launch and nobody set up redirects.
Picture a family-owned landscaping company moving from a site built years ago to a modern one. The old site looks dated but has a decade of links from local organizations and a few pages that bring steady calls. The new site should keep those.
How we do it
A migration has three stages: before launch, launch day and after launch.
- 1
Before launch
1. Inventory and baseline. We collect every URL on your current site from a crawl, your XML sitemap, Search Console and analytics. Competitor traffic research, run on your own domain, shows which of those URLs rank for which keywords and roughly how much traffic each brings. This baseline tells us which pages carry the most value and gives us something to measure against after launch.
2. Protect valuable content. We compare the old page list with the new site's plan. If a page that brings traffic has no equivalent on the new site, we flag it before launch, when adding it is easy.
3. Build the URL map. Every old URL is paired with its closest new URL. We avoid redirecting everything to the home page, which search engines treat much like a missing page.
4. Write and test redirects. We turn the map into 301 redirect rules in the format your platform needs. On the staging site, or right after launch if staging can't test redirects, we run redirect checks to confirm each one lands on a live page in one hop, with no loops or chains through old rules.
5. Review staging. We check the new templates for titles, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, canonical tags, schema and image alt text, and confirm the staging site is blocked from search while it is being built.
Redirect checksCompetitor traffic research - 2
Launch day
6. Go-live checks. Once the site is live we confirm the noindex setting is removed, robots.txt allows crawling, redirects work, analytics and conversion tracking fire, and forms submit.
7. Sitemap and Search Console. Sitemap checks confirm that the new XML sitemap lists only live, indexable URLs. We submit it in Search Console and, for domain changes, file the change of address.
Sitemap checks - 3
After launch
8. Monitor. We track rankings and traffic against the baseline with the same traffic research, rerun redirect checks and watch Search Console for crawl errors. When an old URL we missed shows up returning an error, we redirect it.
Redirect checks
The mistakes we check for
Migrations fail in familiar ways, and most failures trace back to a handful of oversights. These are the ones we check for on every project:
- Redirecting everything to the home page. It is quick to set up, but search engines generally treat it like a missing page, and any value from links to the old page is largely lost.
- Leaving the staging block in place. The new site was hidden from search while it was being built, and the setting went live with it.
- Dropping pages that looked unimportant. An old blog post or a small service page gets cut in the redesign, yet it was quietly bringing in steady visits and links.
- Changing every title at once. New copy is fine, but rewriting every page title without keyword data can remove the terms that were ranking.
- Forgetting internal links. Menus get updated, but links inside page content still point to old URLs, sending visitors and crawlers through extra redirects.
- Losing tracking. Analytics or conversion tags aren't added to the new templates, so nobody can measure what changed.
- Letting the old domain expire. After a domain change, the old domain has to stay registered and redirecting, or every old link breaks at once.
What you receive
Across the project you receive:
- The URL inventory and baseline, with traffic and ranking data per page
- The URL map and redirect file, ready to install
- A pre-launch checklist marked off against your staging site
- A launch day report confirming each check passed
- Post-launch monitoring updates comparing rankings and traffic to the baseline, with a record of any fixes made
The URL map and redirect file stay with you after the project. Keep them: if a future developer ever rebuilds the site again, they show exactly which old addresses still need to resolve, which prevents the same losses from happening twice.
If the migration is part of a redesign we're also handling, see our website redesign services.
Pricing: custom quote after a free review
Migrations are quoted after a free review, because the work depends on how many URLs you have, whether the domain or URL structure is changing and how far along the new site is. It helps to talk to us before the new site is finished, when fixing the plan is still easy.
Frequently asked questions
Something else? Call (866) 571-4320.
Why do sites lose traffic after a migration?
The most common causes are missing redirects, so old URLs that had rankings and links now return errors, and pages or content that were dropped in the new design. Others include the staging site's 'noindex' setting left on, new titles and headings that no longer match what people search, and internal links pointing at old URLs. Almost all of them are preventable with planning.
Is some drop after launch normal?
A short period of movement is common while Google recrawls the site and processes redirects, even when everything is done correctly. How much and how long depends on the size of the site and the change. What a good website migration SEO process prevents is the lasting loss that comes from broken redirects and missing pages.
When should I bring you in?
Ideally before the new site's structure is final, so the URL plan and page list can be adjusted cheaply. We can still help if the new site is nearly done or has already launched, but some fixes then mean changing work that was already built. After a launch that went wrong, the first job is finding and redirecting the URLs that broke.
Do I need to keep my old URLs?
Keeping URLs that work is the safest option, and on platform changes it is often possible. When URLs must change, for example moving from WordPress to Shopify, which uses its own URL patterns, each old URL needs a 301 redirect to the closest equivalent new page. The site migration SEO plan documents every one.
Can you work with my web designer or developer?
Yes, and that is how most migrations work. The designer builds the site, and we provide the URL map, redirect rules and pre-launch checklist, then check their staging site and the live launch. We keep our requests specific so they don't slow the project down.
What about changing my business name and domain?
A domain change carries more risk than a redesign on the same domain, because every URL changes at once. We use Search Console's change of address tool, keep the old domain registered and redirecting for the long term, and update your business listings and key backlinks to the new domain where possible.
How long should redirects stay in place?
Treat them as permanent. Old links on other websites, bookmarks and business listings can keep sending people to your old URLs for years. Removing redirects later breaks all of those at once, so we recommend keeping them for as long as the site exists.
Plan your move before it costs you rankings
Tell us about your business in a short chat. We review your website and contact you within one business day, with no obligation.