SEO migration refers to the process of moving a website or altering its key elements, such as its domain, CMS, or URL structure, in a way that affects its SEO performance. While migration can improve site architecture, user experience, and page speed, it also introduces risks. These include traffic loss, keyword ranking drops, and potential indexing issues if not managed correctly.

A well-executed migration helps retain or even improve SEO rankings, while poor handling can lead to significant losses in search engine visibility and organic traffic.

By understanding the intricacies of SEO migration and preparing for the process, website owners can minimize risks and ensure long-term SEO success for their site.

Table of Contents

Identifying Your Type of Migration

Understanding the specific type of migration you’re undertaking is essential, as it directly influences the potential SEO impact. Different types of migrations come with varying levels of risk to your rankings, traffic, and overall search visibility.

1. Backend Migration

This refers to moving your site from one CMS or platform to another (e.g., WordPress to Shopify). If the migration doesn’t alter your URL structure or content, the impact on SEO is minimal. However, some CMS platforms may handle URL slugs differently, so it’s crucial to collaborate with your developer to ensure that URLs are preserved or properly redirected. Key SEO settings like meta tags, redirects, and canonical tags must also be audited and re-applied if they are managed by plugins or platform-specific tools.

Key Focus: Confirm that URLs, metadata, and canonical tags carry over to the new platform.

2. Domain Migration

Changing your website’s domain (e.g., moving from www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com) introduces significant SEO risks. To prevent losing your rankings, a 301 redirect map is essential. This process tells search engines that the old URLs have permanently moved to the new domain, helping to preserve your SEO equity.

Key Focus: Maintain identical URL slugs across both domains where possible. This enables your developer to apply simple redirection rules in .htaccess, which can push all URLs from the old domain to the matching URLs on the new domain without needing manual redirects for each page.

3. Subdomain to Root Migration (or Vice Versa)

Moving content from a subdomain (e.g., blog.yoursite.com) to a root domain (www.yoursite.com) or vice versa can also have a notable SEO impact. Search engines often treat subdomains as separate entities, meaning any content or authority gained on the subdomain needs to be carefully redirected and transferred to the root domain, or the other way around. It’s critical to set up proper 301 redirects to prevent the loss of search engine visibility.

Key Focus: Ensure all subdomain URLs are properly mapped and redirected to corresponding URLs on the root domain.

4. Site Revamp with URL Structure Changes

This type of migration typically accompanies a complete site overhaul where the fundamental structure of your URLs is altered. Whether it’s a change in your folder structure, URL slugs, or page hierarchy, this has a major SEO impact. Every URL that changes needs to be properly mapped and redirected to avoid losing rankings, and you’ll need to audit for new issues such as broken links and crawl errors.

Key Focus: Create a comprehensive 301 redirect plan, thoroughly audit URLs, and update internal linking structures accordingly.

Essential Advice

If your migration affects URLs or on-page content, it will directly impact SEO rankings. Domain changes, structural changes, or moving from subdomain to root require careful planning and execution to ensure SEO equity is preserved. Meanwhile, backend migrations with no change to URLs or content have minimal SEO implications, but it’s still important to audit plugins, metadata, and canonical tags to ensure nothing is lost in the transition.

Pre-Migration Checklist

Migrating your website is a significant undertaking that can greatly impact your SEO performance. To ensure a smooth transition and preserve your search rankings, it’s essential to meticulously prepare before the migration takes place. Below is a comprehensive pre-migration checklist to guide you through this critical phase.

1. Set SEO Goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Before initiating the migration, clearly define what you aim to achieve from an SEO perspective. Setting specific goals will provide direction and help measure the success of the migration.

Define Specific SEO Goals:

Ranking Stability: Aim to maintain or improve your current keyword rankings.
Traffic Retention: Ensure that organic traffic levels remain consistent post-migration.
Improved Site Architecture: Enhance the structure of your site for better crawlability and user experience.
Faster Load Times: Optimize page speed to improve user engagement and search rankings.

Identify KPIs to Measure Success:

Organic Traffic: Monitor overall traffic from search engines using tools like Google Analytics.
SERP Rankings: Track keyword positions before and after migration using rank tracking tools.
Page Speed Metrics: Use Google PageSpeed Insights to benchmark and improve load times.
Bounce Rate and User Engagement: Assess how users interact with your site post-migration.

Setting clear goals and KPIs ensures that everyone involved understands the objectives and can work towards common targets. It also allows you to measure the migration’s impact accurately.

2. Conduct a Comprehensive SEO Site Audit For Both Current And Staging Websites

A thorough SEO audit of your current website provides a baseline for comparison after migration and helps identify areas that need attention.

Use SEO Audit Tools

Screaming Frog: Crawl your website to collect data on URLs, meta tags, headers, images, and more.
Semrush/Ahrefs: Analyze site health, backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and on-page SEO factors.

Analyze Critical SEO Elements

Indexability: Check which pages are indexed by search engines and identify any issues.
Sitemap Health: Ensure your XML sitemap is up-to-date and error-free.
Backlinks: Export a list of inbound links to monitor and manage post-migration.
On-Page SEO: Review meta titles, descriptions, header tags, and content relevance.
Structured Data: Audit schema markup to ensure rich snippets are maintained.
Internal Linking: Map out your internal link structure to preserve link equity.

Benchmark Existing Site Performance

Rankings: Document your current keyword rankings for future comparison.
Traffic: Record organic traffic levels and user behavior metrics.
Page Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to note load times.

By conducting a comprehensive audit, you gain valuable insights into your site’s current SEO standing. This information is crucial for identifying potential issues that could arise during migration and for verifying that all SEO elements are correctly transferred to the new site.

3. Map Old URLs to New URLs

One of the most critical steps in migration is ensuring that users and search engines are seamlessly directed from old URLs to new ones.

Create a Detailed 301 Redirect Map

Inventory All Existing URLs: Use your audit data to compile a complete list of current URLs.
Map to New URLs: Align each old URL with its new counterpart on the new site.
Use 301 Redirects: Implement server-side 301 redirects to permanently redirect old URLs to new ones, transferring SEO authority.

Plan for Irrelevant or Removed Content

Use 410 Status Codes: For content that is no longer relevant and won’t be replaced, use a 410 (Gone) status code to inform search engines that the content has been permanently removed.
Provide User-Friendly Messages: Ensure that users hitting these URLs receive helpful information or are guided to related content.

Test Redirects Before Launch

Use Crawling Tools: Test your redirect map with tools like Screaming Frog to identify any errors.
Check for Redirect Chains: Ensure there are no multiple-step redirects, which can dilute SEO value and slow down page loading.

Proper URL mapping and redirection preserve your site’s SEO equity and ensure a positive user experience by preventing broken links and maintaining search engine trust.

4. Back Up All Website Data

Backing up your website data safeguards against data loss and provides a reference point if any issues arise during migration.

Export Data from Key Sources

Google Analytics and Search Console: Download historical data, including traffic reports, keyword rankings, and indexing status.
Content Management System (CMS): Back up all website content, including pages, posts, images, and databases.

Secure Backups of Critical SEO Data

All Indexed URLs: Keep a record of all URLs currently indexed by search engines.
Metadata: Export meta titles, descriptions, and header tags for all pages.
XML Sitemaps: Save your current XML sitemap for reference.
Backlinks: Preserve a list of inbound links for outreach if necessary.

Having comprehensive backups ensures that you have all the necessary information to restore or reference if something doesn’t transfer correctly during the migration.

Technical Preparations for Migration

Addressing technical aspects ahead of time can significantly reduce downtime and SEO issues during migration.

Lower DNS TTL (Time to Live)

Faster Domain Propagation: Reducing the TTL value in your DNS settings allows changes to propagate more quickly across the internet when you switch domains or servers.
Plan Ahead: Lower the TTL 24-48 hours before the migration to minimize delays.

Set Up a Staging Environment

Develop and Test Safely: A staging site allows you to build and test the new website without affecting the live site.

Mimic Live Environment: Ensure the staging environment closely replicates the live server settings to avoid unexpected issues upon launch.

Audit the Staging Site

Crawl for SEO Issues: Use tools to crawl the staging site and identify any SEO errors, such as missing meta tags, broken links, or incorrect redirects.

Check User Experience (UX): Test site navigation, forms, and interactive elements to ensure they function correctly.

Robots.txt and Noindex Tags: Ensure that search engines cannot index the staging site by correctly setting up the robots.txt file and using noindex tags.

Coordinate with Your Team

Developers: Communicate all SEO requirements to your development team.

Content Creators: Ensure that all content is ready and optimized.

Stakeholders: Keep all parties informed about the migration timeline and expectations.

By thoroughly preparing on the technical front, you mitigate risks and set the stage for a successful migration that maintains or improves your SEO performance.

Migration Execution

The migration phase is where all the preparations come together. Proper execution ensures your SEO efforts are preserved and enhanced. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what needs to happen:

Implement 301 Redirects

301 redirects are critical for transferring the SEO authority of old URLs to their new counterparts.

1:1 Redirect Mapping: Use the detailed URL map prepared earlier. Every old URL should have a corresponding new URL, ensuring a direct 1:1 relationship. Implement server-side 301 redirects to indicate that these pages have permanently moved. This tells search engines to transfer SEO authority (such as rankings and backlinks) from the old URL to the new one.
Pre-Launch Testing: Before making the site live, use tools like Screaming Frog or Semrush to verify that all redirects work correctly. Pay attention to any broken or missing redirects.
Post-Launch Check: After migration, re-crawl the site to ensure no redirects are broken or misconfigured. Fix any redirect chains (where URLs redirect more than once), as they can degrade user experience and affect page load times.
Why it’s important: Proper implementation of 301 redirects is crucial for retaining SEO authority, avoiding broken links, and ensuring that users and search engines can seamlessly navigate the new site.

Update Internal Links

Internal links form the backbone of your site’s navigation and SEO structure. Updating them is essential to avoid broken links or unnecessary redirects post-migration.

Review Hard-Coded Links: Hard-coded links in your navigation menus, footers, body content, or other areas need to be manually updated. Use the URL map to change all internal links to reflect the new structure. If these are not updated, users may encounter broken links or go through unnecessary redirect chains, slowing down the site and damaging SEO.
Internal Link Health Check: Use a crawler tool to check for any links that still point to the old URLs. These should be updated to the new URLs to maintain a smooth user experience and prevent losing internal link equity, which is crucial for SEO.
Why it’s important: Updating internal links ensures that both users and search engines can navigate the site efficiently, while also preserving your link equity. This prevents broken links or slow load times due to redirect chains, which could hurt SEO performance.

Crawl the Staging Site

Crawling your staging environment is one of the most important steps in detecting potential issues before the migration goes live. This allows you to catch and fix SEO errors early.

Check for Common Errors: Use crawling tools like Screaming Frog or JetOctopus to crawl the staging site. Look for broken links, missing metadata, canonical tags, hreflang tags, or any missing structured data.
Verify Mobile-Friendliness: Since mobile usability is a key ranking factor, ensure the staging site is fully optimised for mobile. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check for any mobile-related issues.
Review Structured Data: Ensure that all schema markup (structured data) is intact and correctly applied. Structured data helps search engines better understand your site’s content, and any issues here could impact rich snippets or search visibility.
Robots.txt and Canonical Tags: Ensure the robots.txt file is configured correctly to allow search engine crawlers to access the necessary parts of the site. Check for proper canonicalisation of pages to avoid duplicate content issues.

Why it’s important: Crawling the staging site lets you identify and fix any SEO or UX issues before launch, reducing the risk of problems that could damage rankings or user experience post-migration.

Map and Port Over SEO Elements

In addition to mapping URLs, it’s crucial to port over key SEO elements such as meta titles, descriptions, and heading tags (H1, H2, H3) from the old pages to the new ones. This helps maintain the on-page SEO that contributes to your rankings and visibility.

Meta Titles and Descriptions: Ensure that each new page retains its optimized titles and descriptions to prevent ranking drops and maintain click-through rates (CTR).
Heading Tags: Retain the existing H1, H2, and H3 tags to keep the page structure consistent for both users and search engines.

Preserving these elements reduces the risk of losing hard-earned rankings and provides continuity in your content’s optimisation.

Update XML Sitemap & Robots.txt

Updating your XML sitemap and robots.txt file is essential for ensuring search engines can accurately crawl and index the new site structure.

XML Sitemap Update: Generate a new XML sitemap that reflects all the updated URLs from the migration. Submit this new sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure that search engines can quickly find and index your new pages.
Robots.txt Configuration: Review the robots.txt file to ensure that it correctly allows or disallows crawling for the appropriate sections of your site. Double-check that the sitemap URL is included in the robots.txt file for search engine crawlers.
Why it’s important: A well-configured sitemap and robots.txt file ensure that search engines can crawl and index the new site efficiently, preventing issues like unindexed pages or blocked content.

Timing and Testing

Timing your migration strategically can minimise potential disruption to both your users and SEO.

Migrate During Off-Peak Hours: Schedule your migration during periods of low traffic, such as late at night or early in the morning. This reduces the risk of negatively impacting user experience while minimising the load on servers during the migration process.
User Flow Testing: After the migration is complete, test user flows on both desktop and mobile devices to ensure that all site functionalities, forms, and interactive elements work as expected. This is especially important for critical user journeys like navigation, search, checkout, or lead generation forms.
Monitor for Early Issues: Closely monitor performance and user behavior (bounce rates, session durations, etc.) in the immediate aftermath of the migration. Address any usability or SEO issues that may arise during this critical phase.
Why it’s important: Proper timing reduces disruption, and post-migration testing ensures that your new site offers a smooth user experience, both of which contribute to maintaining or improving SEO performance post-launch.

By thoroughly executing each of these migration steps, you mitigate the risks associated with SEO migration and help ensure a smooth transition. Properly handling redirects, updating internal links, crawling the staging site, and configuring critical files like the sitemap and robots.txt are key to preserving your site’s SEO value.

Post-Migration Monitoring

After executing your migration, it’s crucial to closely monitor your site’s performance to ensure everything functions as expected. Post-migration monitoring helps to quickly detect and address issues that could negatively impact your SEO.

Verify with Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools

Once your migration is live, it’s essential to verify the new domain or URLs in both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Add and Verify New Domain: If the migration involved a domain change, add the new domain to Google Search Console and Bing. This step ensures that search engines can crawl and index your new URLs.
Submit Updated XML Sitemap: After updating your sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console and Bing. This helps search engines find and index your new pages efficiently.
Monitor for Crawl Errors: Regularly check for crawl errors, indexing issues, and any alerts that Google or Bing may flag. If there are issues with indexing or pages not being crawled correctly, address them promptly.
Why it’s important: Submitting the updated sitemap and verifying the new site allows search engines to begin indexing your new URLs, helping to maintain or regain search visibility.

Monitor Traffic, Rankings, and User Behaviour

It’s critical to track your site’s performance metrics after migration to compare them against pre-migration benchmarks.

Monitor Organic Traffic: Use Google Analytics or Semrush to track organic traffic levels. Look for significant drops in traffic, which could indicate an issue with indexing or redirects.
Check Keyword Rankings: Use SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to monitor keyword rankings. If you notice significant ranking drops, identify the affected pages and investigate the cause (e.g., broken redirects or missing metadata).
Analyse User Behaviour: Keep an eye on engagement metrics like bounce rate, session duration, and page views. These will give you insight into how users are interacting with your newly migrated site. If user behaviour changes drastically, you may need to adjust site elements for better UX.
Why it’s important: Monitoring traffic, rankings, and user behavior allows you to identify and address any immediate SEO issues, ensuring the transition doesn’t result in lasting SEO damage.

Check Redirects and Crawlability

Ensuring that all redirects are functioning correctly is crucial to preserving your SEO performance.

Recrawl the Site: Use tools like Screaming Frog or JetOctopus to crawl the site post-migration. This will help you detect any broken links, incorrect redirects, or unindexed pages.
Fix Redirects and Errors: Address any issues that arise during the crawl, such as redirect chains (where URLs go through multiple redirects) or broken redirects. Redirect chains can slow down page load times and affect SEO performance.
Why it’s important: Properly functioning redirects ensure that users and search engines can navigate the new site without encountering issues, preserving link equity and SEO authority.

Conduct Post-Migration SEO Audits

A thorough SEO audit after migration is essential for catching any remaining issues that could affect your site’s performance.

Re-Audit Meta Titles and Descriptions: Ensure that meta titles and descriptions have been properly migrated. Missing or incorrect meta data can negatively impact click-through rates (CTR) and rankings.
Check Structured Data: Make sure that any structured data (schema markup) has been correctly transferred. This is crucial for maintaining rich snippets and improving search visibility.
Audit Internal Links: Check that all internal links are updated to point to the correct URLs. Internal linking is key to maintaining your site’s SEO structure and link equity.
Review Page Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to monitor page load times. Speed is a critical ranking factor, and a slower site post-migration can lead to SEO penalties.
Why it’s important: Post-migration audits ensure that all SEO elements, such as meta data, structured data, and internal links, are correctly in place. It also helps identify any issues with page speed that could affect user experience and SEO performance.

By diligently monitoring your site post-migration, you can identify and address any issues before they have a lasting negative impact on your SEO. The more thorough your post-migration checks, the better your chances of maintaining, and even improving, your search engine rankings and user experience.

Key Considerations and Pitfalls

As with any significant project, website migrations come with potential challenges that can hinder your SEO success. Here are the key pitfalls to watch for and strategies to ensure a smooth transition.

Common Pitfalls

Missed Redirects: One of the most common errors is failing to set up all necessary 301 redirects. This leads to broken links, which not only frustrates users but can also result in lost SEO rankings. Every old URL must be correctly redirected to its corresponding new URL.
Duplicate Content or Unintentional Noindex Tags: During migration, some pages may accidentally end up with duplicate content, which can harm your rankings. Similarly, mistakenly applying a noindex tag to important pages prevents them from being indexed by search engines, hurting your visibility.
Mismatched Internal Links: If internal links point to old URLs or redirect chains, it can degrade both user experience and SEO value. This can slow down your site and reduce the effectiveness of your internal linking strategy, which helps distribute page authority across your site.
Missing Metadata: Failing to carry over meta titles, descriptions, and heading tags can negatively affect your site’s visibility in search engine results. These elements are critical for SEO and user click-through rates, and losing them during migration can cause drops in traffic.

Successful Migration Tips

Use a Phased Migration for Large Sites: For larger sites or those with multiple properties, consider implementing the migration in phases. This method allows you to test smaller sections of the site before going live with the entire migration, helping to catch and resolve issues early.
Forecast Potential Traffic Dips: It’s common to see a temporary dip in traffic post-migration. Anticipate this by setting clear expectations with stakeholders and having mitigation strategies in place. Monitor keyword rankings and organic traffic closely, and address issues as they arise.
Leverage Staging Environments: Always conduct your migration in a staging environment first. This allows you to identify and fix any issues before the site goes live, minimizing risks to your SEO and user experience.
Communicate with Users and Search Engines: If your migration is due to rebranding or a domain change, consider adding a temporary banner or pop-up notifying users of the transition. This reduces confusion for users and helps search engines understand the context of the change, preserving your site authority.
Test Everything Thoroughly: Before and after the migration, perform rigorous testing. Ensure all redirects, internal links, and user flows function as intended. Post-launch, continue to monitor site speed, user behavior, and crawlability to catch any lingering issues.

Addressing common pitfalls and following best practices can dramatically reduce the chances of an SEO disaster during migration. Being proactive with these strategies ensures your rankings, traffic, and overall site performance remain stable, or even improve, post-migration.

Recommended Migration Tools

Effective migrations require the right tools to ensure a smooth transition without damaging your SEO performance. Below are essential tools and how they can be used in your migration process:

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is an invaluable site crawler that helps audit your website both before and after migration. Here’s how it can be used effectively:

Pre-Migration Audits: Crawl the entire site to create a URL inventory, analyze metadata, and identify broken links.
Redirect Verification: Post-migration, use it to verify that all 301 redirects are functioning properly and to check for any broken or orphaned pages.
Internal Linking: Analyze internal links to ensure they point to the new URLs and that there are no redirect chains.
Why it’s valuable: Screaming Frog gives a comprehensive view of your site’s SEO elements, making it essential for diagnosing issues before and after migration.

Semrush

Semrush is an all-in-one SEO platform that offers in-depth insights into traffic, rankings, and overall site health. During migration, Semrush can be used to:

Benchmarking: Track pre-migration rankings and keyword visibility to establish a baseline for post-migration comparisons.
Backlink Monitoring: Ensure that valuable backlinks are still pointing to the correct URLs after migration.
Ongoing SEO Audits: Conduct regular site audits to catch any post-migration issues, such as crawl errors or dropped rankings.
Why it’s valuable: Semrush’s comprehensive SEO toolkit makes it ideal for monitoring ranking changes and diagnosing SEO issues that arise after a migration.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another excellent SEO platform, particularly strong in backlink analysis and site audits. Key ways it can assist in your migration include:

Backlink Profile Analysis: Pre-migration, you can audit your backlink profile to ensure that all valuable inbound links are accounted for. After migration, check that these links are properly redirecting to the new URLs.
Site Audits: Use Ahrefs’ site audit feature to monitor the health of your new site post-migration, ensuring that no technical issues are negatively affecting SEO.
Why it’s valuable: Ahrefs excels at backlink tracking and offers an easy way to monitor the impact of migration on your overall site authority.

Getredirects.com

This tool simplifies the process of setting up and testing 301 redirects, crucial for ensuring that your old URLs transfer their SEO equity to the new URLs.

Redirect Map Generator: Use Getredirects.com to create a bulk redirect map, which simplifies the migration process and reduces the chance of human error in setting up individual redirects.
Redirect Testing: Test your 301 redirects in bulk to ensure they are properly configured, minimizing the risk of broken links.
Why it’s valuable: Getredirects.com takes the complexity out of managing and testing redirects, helping you streamline one of the most critical aspects of migration.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is an essential tool for monitoring the SEO health of your site before, during, and after migration. It helps in several ways:

Submit Updated Sitemaps: Post-migration, use GSC to submit your updated XML sitemap to Google for indexing.

Crawl and Index Monitoring: Track crawl errors, indexing issues, and monitor the status of your new URLs in Google’s search index.

Change of Address Tool: If you’re performing a domain migration, GSC allows you to notify Google of the domain change, helping to speed up the transition.

Why it’s valuable: GSC provides real-time feedback from Google on your site’s health and indexing status, making it crucial for ensuring your migration is recognized and crawled effectively.

Conclusion

Migrating a website can be a complex and challenging process, especially when it comes to preserving your hard-earned SEO performance. By following a structured approach—setting clear goals, auditing thoroughly, executing meticulously, and monitoring post-migration results—you can minimise risks and ensure a successful transition.

If you need expert assistance, First Page offers leading SEO services with a proven track record of successful website migrations that safeguard and enhance your search rankings.

A Comprehensive Website Migration Checklist