Every time a website changes its addresses, Google has to work out where the old pages went. Get that wrong and pages that have brought in enquiries for years can drop out of search within weeks of launch. Website migration SEO is the planning, checking and follow-up that lets you redesign, change platform or move domain while keeping the search traffic you already have.
What a migration puts at risk, and what this work keeps
A site migration is any change that alters the URLs, content, platform or domain Google has indexed. The risk sits in what the old site has quietly built up: pages Google trusts for particular searches, links from other websites pointing at specific addresses, and the internal structure that tells Google which pages matter most.
When an old address returns an error instead of forwarding to its replacement, that history stops counting. The new page starts close to zero, the links pointing at the old one lead nowhere, and visitors arriving from bookmarks, emails and old social posts hit a dead end. The work on this page exists to stop that happening: every valuable old address is accounted for, every redirect is tested before launch, and the first weeks afterwards are watched closely enough to catch problems while they are still cheap to fix.
Who this suits, and who it does not
This is for UK businesses that have a site with real search traffic and are about to change it in one of these ways:
- a redesign or rebuild where page addresses, menus or content will change
- a move to a new platform, for example from an old custom build to WordPress or from WooCommerce to Shopify
- a domain change, such as a rebrand or a move from a .co.uk to a .com address
- merging two websites after an acquisition, or folding a separate shop or blog into the main site
- moving the whole site to HTTPS or tidying up messy URL structures
It also suits businesses whose migration has already happened and whose traffic has fallen since. The checks are much the same; the order changes.
If you are launching a brand-new business on a brand-new domain, there is nothing to migrate, and the website launch SEO checklist will serve you better. If you still need someone to design and build the new site, that is my website redesign service; this page covers the SEO side of a move that you, your developer or your agency is building.
What the work covers
A record of what the current site earns
Before anything changes, I crawl the live site and pull every URL that has had clicks, impressions, links or conversions, using Google Search Console, your analytics, backlink data and your sitemaps. That becomes the list of addresses that must survive. Most sites have far more URLs than anyone remembers: old blog posts, PDF downloads, filtered category pages, campaign landing pages from years ago. Several of them usually matter.
The redirect map
Each old URL is matched to the closest equivalent on the new site with a permanent 301 redirect. The closest equivalent, not the homepage: sending everything to the homepage is treated by Google much like a missing page. Where a page genuinely has no replacement, I decide with you whether it should be kept, merged into another page or allowed to return a 404. The finished map can be turned into server rules with the free redirect map builder, which also catches chains and loops.
Checks on the staging site
Before launch, I review the new build on its staging site: page titles, headings and body copy carried across, canonical tags pointing at the new addresses, internal links updated rather than relying on redirects, structured data still present, mobile layout and speed, and the robots and noindex settings that must be switched off at launch. I also confirm that the staging site itself is kept out of Google, because an indexed staging copy competes with the live site.
Tracking and consent
New sites often launch with Google Analytics missing, firing twice or blocked by a cookie banner that was never configured to allow it after consent. Under UK GDPR and PECR the banner has to be there, so I check that consent, analytics and your conversion events all work together before launch, otherwise you cannot measure the migration you have just paid for.
Launch day
On launch, I test the redirect map against the live server, confirm the new XML sitemap is in place and submitted, check robots.txt and noindex settings, and spot-check the pages that earn the most. For a domain change, the new property is verified in Search Console and the Change of Address tool is used from the old one.
The weeks after launch
Some movement in rankings after a migration is normal while Google recrawls. What matters is spotting the difference between that settling and a real fault. I monitor Search Console coverage and performance, crawl errors, redirect behaviour and your enquiries, and fix or escalate what turns up.
How I run a migration
- Scoping call. What is changing, why, who is building it, the launch date and what the site currently earns.
- Benchmark and inventory. A dated record of traffic, rankings and indexed pages, so the result can be judged against something real.
- Redirect map and URL plan. Drafted, reviewed with you and handed to your developer in the format their platform needs.
- Staging review. A prioritised list of issues to fix before launch, with a recommendation on whether the launch date is safe.
- Launch support. Checks on the day, done with your developer so problems are fixed while everyone is still focused on the site.
- Post-launch monitoring. Regular reviews over the following weeks, with a written comparison against the benchmark.
I work alongside whoever is building the site rather than replacing them. Bringing me in before the new site structure is fixed is far easier than after the designs are signed off, because some of the best protection is simply keeping URLs that do not need to change.
Mistakes I see after UK migrations go wrong
- No redirects at all. The new site goes live, the old URLs return 404 errors, and nobody notices until enquiries drop.
- Everything redirected to the homepage. Quick to set up, and almost as damaging as no redirects.
- Chains left from previous redesigns. An address that has been moved three times becomes a redirect chain, which slows crawling and can stop Google following it to the end.
- The “discourage search engines” setting left on. Common on WordPress, where the staging setting comes across to the live site. My WordPress SEO service covers this and the other settings that WordPress launches tend to miss.
- Content cut during the redesign. Shorter, prettier pages that no longer answer what people were searching for. I compare old and new copy page by page for the pages that earn the most, before launch.
- The outside world not updated. After a domain change, your Google Business Profile, Google Ads final URLs, email signatures and listings on UK directories such as Yell still point at the old domain.
If your traffic has already fallen after a launch, the starting point is a technical SEO review of redirects, indexing and canonicals, compared page by page against what the old site used to rank for.
What you receive
- the benchmark of the old site’s traffic, rankings and indexed pages
- the complete redirect map as a spreadsheet, ready for your developer
- a staging review with issues ranked by how much traffic they put at risk
- a launch-day checklist completed and signed off
- written post-launch reports comparing the new site against the benchmark, with any remaining fixes listed
Where to start
If you have a migration coming up, tell me what is changing and when it is due to launch. The earlier that conversation happens, the more of the site’s search history can be kept with very little effort. If you are not yet sure what your current site earns in search, a free SEO audit is a sensible first step, and it will show which pages need the most care in the move.