migrate-site

Migrate Site

Guide a domain migration, CMS switch, or URL restructure without losing rankings — redirect mapping, monitoring plan, and rollback criteria.

Migration Types

All migrations carry SEO risk. The goal is to minimize the traffic dip and speed up recovery.

Phase 1: Pre-Migration Audit

Inventory Everything

Before touching anything, document the current state:

Pages:

• [ ] Full list of all indexed URLs (from sitemap + Search Console)
• [ ] Each page's monthly traffic (Search Console, last 6 months)
• [ ] Each page's top keywords and positions
• [ ] Each page's backlink count (pages with external links need special attention)

Technical:

• [ ] Current robots.txt
• [ ] Current XML sitemap(s)
• [ ] Current redirect rules
• [ ] Current structured data
• [ ] Current canonical tags
• [ ] Current internal linking structure

Performance:

• [ ] Total organic traffic baseline (weekly and monthly)
• [ ] Top 50 pages by traffic
• [ ] Core Web Vitals scores
• [ ] Crawl stats from Search Console

Save everything. You need this data to compare against post-migration.

Identify High-Value Pages

Not all pages are equal. Flag these for extra attention:

• Pages with the most organic traffic (top 20%)
• Pages with external backlinks
• Pages that rank for high-value keywords
• Landing pages tied to conversions
• Pages with featured snippets

These pages must have working redirects and should be verified individually after migration.

Phase 2: Redirect Mapping

The redirect map is the most critical artifact. Every old URL must map to the right new URL.

Mapping Rules

Rules:

• Use 301 redirects for permanent moves (not 302)
• Map each old URL to the most relevant new URL (not all to homepage)
• Preserve URL structure where possible (fewer redirects = less risk)
• Avoid redirect chains (old → intermediate → new). Every redirect should be direct.
• Handle URL variations: with/without trailing slash, with/without www, HTTP/HTTPS

Common Pitfalls

• Forgetting to redirect paginated URLs (/page/2, /page/3)
• Missing query parameter URLs that have backlinks
• Case sensitivity issues (some servers treat /Page and /page differently)
• Redirecting everything to the homepage (kills page-level authority)

Phase 3: Technical Setup

Before the Switch

• [ ] New site is fully crawlable (no staging robots.txt left behind)
• [ ] All redirect rules are implemented and tested
• [ ] New XML sitemap is ready (with new URLs)
• [ ] Canonical tags on new pages point to new URLs (not old)
• [ ] Internal links updated to new URLs (don't rely on redirect chains for internal links)
• [ ] Structured data updated with new URLs
• [ ] Hreflang tags updated (if multilingual)
• [ ] Google Search Console property created for new domain (if domain change)
• [ ] Analytics tracking updated on new site
• [ ] CDN/caching configured for new site

The Switch

• [ ] Deploy redirect rules
• [ ] Deploy new site
• [ ] Verify redirects are working (spot-check 20+ URLs)
• [ ] Submit new sitemap to Search Console
• [ ] If domain change: use Search Console's Change of Address tool
• [ ] Force-crawl key pages using Search Console URL Inspection
• [ ] Monitor server errors in real-time for the first 24 hours

Phase 4: Post-Migration Monitoring

Week 1 (daily checks)

• [ ] Check Search Console for crawl errors (404s, 5xx errors)
• [ ] Verify organic traffic hasn't dropped catastrophically
• [ ] Check that redirects are still working
• [ ] Look for pages returning 404 that should redirect
• [ ] Monitor server response times (migration can reveal performance issues)

Weeks 2-4 (weekly checks)

• [ ] Compare organic traffic to pre-migration baseline
• [ ] Check indexation status in Search Console (indexed page count)
• [ ] Verify key pages are indexed under new URLs
• [ ] Check ranking positions for top keywords
• [ ] Review crawl stats for anomalies

Months 2-3 (monthly checks)

• [ ] Traffic should be recovering to pre-migration levels
• [ ] All old URLs should show as redirected in Search Console
• [ ] New URLs should be indexed and ranking
• [ ] Core Web Vitals should be stable

Expected Timeline

• Traffic dip: Normal. Expect 10-30% drop in the first 2-4 weeks.
• Recovery: Most sites recover within 2-3 months if redirects are correct.
• Full stabilization: 3-6 months for large sites.
• Red flag: If traffic hasn't started recovering after 4 weeks, investigate.

Phase 5: Rollback Plan

Before migrating, define rollback criteria:

Rollback if:

• Organic traffic drops > 50% for more than 7 days
• More than 20% of redirects are broken
• Critical conversion pages are not accessible
• Server errors exceed acceptable threshold

Rollback steps:

1. Revert DNS (if domain change) or redeploy old site
2. Remove or reverse redirects
3. Re-submit old sitemap
4. Investigate what went wrong before attempting again

Output Format

Migration Plan: [old] → [new]

Migration Type: [domain change / CMS switch / URL restructure / etc.] Risk Level: [low / medium / high] Estimated Timeline: [preparation + execution + monitoring]

Pre-Migration Inventory

• Total indexed pages: [count]
• Pages with backlinks: [count]
• Top traffic pages: [list top 10]
• Current monthly organic traffic: [baseline]

Redirect Map [Table — full mapping of old → new URLs]

Technical Checklist [Checklist from Phase 3]

Monitoring Schedule [Checkpoints from Phase 4]

Rollback Criteria [Defined thresholds and steps]

Risk Areas

• High-value pages that need extra attention
• Known technical challenges for this migration type
• External backlinks that must be preserved

Pro Tip: Use the free Broken Link Checker to verify redirects post-migration, and the Htaccess Generator to build redirect rules. SEOJuice MCP users can run /seojuice:site-health for a full page inventory with link data, /seojuice:keyword-analysis to identify high-value pages, and list_changes to detect content differences post-migration.