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:
- Revert DNS (if domain change) or redeploy old site
- Remove or reverse redirects
- Re-submit old sitemap
- 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-healthfor a full page inventory with link data,/seojuice:keyword-analysisto identify high-value pages, andlist_changesto detect content differences post-migration.
