Migrate Site

Guide a domain migration, CMS switch, or URL restructure without losing

rankings — redirect mapping, monitoring plan, and rollback criteria.

Migration Types

Type

Risk Level

Example

Domain change

High

olddomain.com → newdomain.com

Protocol change

Low

HTTP → HTTPS

CMS switch

Medium-High

WordPress → Next.js, Shopify → custom

URL restructure

Medium

/blog/2024/post → /blog/post

Subdomain migration

Medium

blog.example.com → example.com/blog

Design/template change

Low-Medium

Same URLs, new templates

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

Old URL

New URL

Type

Notes

/old-page

/new-page

301

Content matches

/removed-page

/closest-relevant-page

301

Consolidated into related page

/deleted-page

/

301

No relevant page — send to homepage (last resort)

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-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.