Change platforms or domains and keep the traffic you earned.
A redesign, replatform or domain change can wipe out years of search visibility in one release. We plan the move around your URLs, content, metadata, schema and tracking, test it before launch and watch search results closely afterwards.
How do you migrate a website without losing SEO?
List every URL that earns traffic, links or sales, decide where each one will live after the move, and redirect old addresses to their closest new equivalents with permanent 301 redirects. Keep titles, headings, internal links, structured data and analytics in place, test everything on a hidden staging copy, and compare crawls before and after launch. Watch Search Console and server logs daily for the first weeks and fix problems quickly. Some short-term movement is normal, and a clean plan keeps it small.
Google describes the main steps in its site move guidance, including redirects and monitoring.
Six phases from audit to the weeks after launch.
A well-run migration starts long before the build and carries on well past launch day.
- 01
Inventory
We crawl the live site and combine it with analytics, Search Console and backlink data to list every URL that matters.
- 02
Benchmark
Rankings, traffic, indexed pages, speed and key templates are recorded, so success can be judged against facts.
- 03
Map the new structure
Each old URL is assigned a destination, a merge, or a deliberate removal with the right status code.
- 04
Build and test on staging
The new site is checked behind a login and noindex protection, with redirects tested in bulk.
- 05
Launch and verify
Redirects go live, sitemaps and robots rules switch over, and a fresh crawl confirms everything resolves.
- 06
Monitor and fix
Indexing, errors and rankings are reviewed daily, then weekly, until the picture settles.
Six migrations, six different risk profiles.
The word migration covers very different projects. Naming yours tells us where the danger is.
Redesign on the same platform
Looks change, but templates, headings and internal links can quietly change too. URLs usually stay, so the risk is in content and markup.
Platform change
Moving from one CMS or store platform to another changes URL patterns, rendered HTML and plugin-generated data.
Domain change
Every page moves to a new address, and trust must be passed across with careful redirects and Search Console steps.
HTTPS or subdomain consolidation
Mixed addresses are merged into one canonical form, which needs consistent redirects and updated internal links.
Site merge or split
Two sites become one, or one is divided, so pages must be consolidated or separated with a clear map.
Framework or headless move
A move to Next.js or similar changes how pages are rendered, which needs checks on crawlability, as in WordPress to Next.js.
The spreadsheet that decides the outcome.
Every migration lives or dies by its URL map. It is boring work and the most valuable part of the project.
What goes into the map
- Every live URL. Pages, posts, products, categories, images and files that earn visits, links or sales are all listed.
- A single destination each. The closest matching page is chosen by purpose, not by convenience, so visitors and search engines land where they expect.
- Planned removals. Pages with no value return a proper 404 or 410, and are not redirected to the home page, which search engines may treat as a soft error.
- Parameters and variants. Filters, tracking parameters and trailing-slash versions are decided deliberately.
The final map is tested in bulk, so each redirect is confirmed to land in one hop with a 200 status.
Getting redirects right the first time.
A redirect looks simple, yet small mistakes cause lost signals, slow pages and crawl waste.
Rules we follow
- Permanent codes. 301 or 308 redirects are used for lasting moves, and temporary ones only for temporary reasons.
- No chains. Old addresses go straight to the final address, not through two or three jumps.
- Server level. Redirects are set in server or edge configuration where possible, which is faster and more dependable than plugins.
- Kept for the long term. Redirects stay in place for a long period, since old links and bookmarks keep arriving for years.
Redirects are one part of crawl health, which our technical SEO work explores more widely.
Keep, change or drop: a decision for each item.
Not everything should move unchanged. This table is the starting point for those decisions.
| Criteria | Default decision | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Page titles and descriptions | Keep unless improved | They carry earned relevance |
| Headings and main copy | Keep for ranking pages | Large rewrites can reset signals |
| Internal links | Update to new URLs | Avoids redirect hops |
| Structured data | Carry over and test | Rich results depend on it |
| Analytics and events | Rebuild and verify | Otherwise results are invisible |
| Thin or duplicate pages | Merge or retire | A chance to clean up |
Protecting the parts people forget.
Visibility depends on more than addresses. These details are often missed until traffic dips.
The often-missed list
- Canonical tags. They must point at the new addresses, not the old domain or staging site.
- Robots and noindex. A staging noindex tag left on at launch is a classic and costly mistake, so we check it on launch day.
- Sitemaps. New XML sitemaps list only live, indexable URLs and are submitted straight away.
- Tracking. Analytics tags and conversion events are tested, a task covered by our analytics tracking service.
- Speed and rendering. Core Web Vitals and server-rendered content are compared with the old site.
Where the move is mostly a hosting or server change, our website migration page covers that side.
Launch-day errors we are paid to prevent.
Most migration damage comes from a short list of avoidable mistakes. We check for each of them before and after release.
Everything redirected to the home page
A lazy blanket redirect throws away the relevance of every inner page and looks like a soft error to search engines.
Staging rules left on
A noindex tag or a robots block from the test site survives into the live site and removes pages from results.
Content rewritten without a reason
Copy on pages that already rank is replaced with new text, and the signals that earned the position go with it.
Tracking added last
Analytics is installed after launch, so the team cannot tell whether traffic fell or was simply not recorded.
The first weeks after going live.
Traffic often dips for a short time after a large move. The question is whether it recovers, and how quickly problems are found.
What we watch
- Crawl comparison. A new crawl is compared with the benchmark to find missing pages, broken links and changed titles.
- Search Console. Indexing, coverage and crawl stats show how search engines are responding to the move.
- Server logs. Logs show which URLs crawlers request and which return errors, long before reports update.
- Rankings and landing pages. Key pages are tracked against the benchmark, with notes on anything that moves unexpectedly.
We report in plain language, including when a dip is normal and when it needs action. A short written summary goes to your team each week, with the three things we checked, what we found and what we changed, so nobody has to read a dashboard to know the state of the move.
SEO migrations, answered.
Straight answers to what clients ask before they start.
Will I lose traffic after a migration?
A short fluctuation is common, because search engines must recrawl and reprocess pages. With a solid URL map, redirects and testing, the drop is usually small and temporary, but no one can promise zero change.
How long does recovery take?
It varies with site size, how much changed and how often your pages are crawled. We monitor against the benchmark and tell you what we see, rather than offering a fixed date.
Is a redesign without new URLs still risky?
Yes. Changing templates, headings, internal links or markup can alter rankings, even when the addresses stay the same. We compare before and after to catch those changes.
Should I do a migration and a redesign at once?
Combining them saves effort but makes problems harder to trace. For high-traffic sites, we sometimes suggest splitting the changes into two releases.
What does a migration plan cost?
It depends on site size, number of templates, the platform change, how much content is rewritten and how much monitoring you want. Large catalogues need more mapping than most brochure sites.
Do you handle the technical build as well?
We can work alongside your developers or do the build ourselves. Many clients bring us in to own the SEO plan while another team builds the site.
Do I need to tell Google about a domain change?
For a domain move, Search Console offers a change of address tool, and it should be used together with redirects. It does not replace correct redirects, so both are done.
When should I bring you in?
As early as possible. Decisions about URL structure, templates and content are far cheaper to make before development starts than after launch.
Move with a plan, not a prayer.
Tell us what is changing and when the launch is planned. We will reply with the main risks for your kind of migration and a sensible order of work, including what to ask your developers to prepare.