Thinking about migrating your website? Let’s get it right from the start, because a botched migration can send your traffic crashing overnight, and the recovery could take months. Too often, businesses focus on flashy visuals and cool features while neglecting the vital SEO migration that ensures your site gets found. Done properly, a seamless migration doesn’t just minimise traffic loss; it boosts performance, enhances user experience, and positions your business for long-term success. Let’s make sure your migration works harder for you.
In this Blog, we’ll walk you through the following so you can feel prepared for your migration mission moving forward:
- What a website migration is
- When a migration is worth doing
- Why a bad migration can wreak havoc on your SEO
- The different types of website migrations
- The essential pre-migration SEO checklist
- What to do next if you’re considering an SEO migration
What is Website Migration?
Website migration relates to the process of making any significant changes to a website’s content, platform, structure, domain, or URL. Changes to any of these elements can have a significant impact on how your content is indexed and ranked by search engines, or simply put, your SEO performance.
Website migrations can be a tricky beast and carry significant technical considerations to be orchestrated properly. If implemented without a proper SEO migration plan in place, your organic rankings and traffic can be severely impacted, and in severe cases, this could sink your business’s algorithmic presence for a significant amount of time.
Why Would You Do a Website Migration?
Businesses, in most cases, pursue a website migration with growth in mind first and foremost, but there’s a catch to this. The funny thing about Google is that, for a company obsessed with change, it really doesn’t like change all that much. To be able to successfully conduct an SEO migration, we basically need to hold Google’s hand, reassure it everything’s fine, and guide it gently through the move.
Some of the most common reasons why a business does a website migration include:
- Moving to a New Platform – Upgrading to a more powerful content management system (CMS), e.g. WordPress, Shopify
- Rebranding/Domain Change – If your business changes names, merges, or aims to target a more localised domain, e.g. .com.au, instead of .com.
- Website Overhaul/Redesign – Changing the look, and more importantly, the structure of your website can impact your SEO due to the reworking of page layouts, drop-down menus, and URLs. Creating a stronger layout for your content can help search engines understand your website more easily.
- Moving from HTTP to HTTPS – Switching your website from HTTP to HTTPS adds another layer of security and helps Google to secure your site through the encryption of user information. This does count as a migration, though and does require direction.
- Multiple Mergings – If you are bringing multiple brands or domains into the fold, then you’ll need a migration performed to ensure organic traffic is preserved and overall SEO performance.
When is a Website Migration Worth It?
The decision to undertake a website migration should not be taken lightly. Consider your business’s circumstances, and when the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term risks to your SEO and traffic, a website migration is worth looking into.
If your current website is holding your business back due to issues such as a poor user interface, outdated technology, slow performance, or mixed messaging, then the risks associated with a website migration are very worthwhile taking on.
Many businesses can limit their SEO potential due to a level of complacency to stay with what has worked in the past, or what they already know; however, sometimes the greatest version of your business is only unlocked when you take that next step forward.
We get it, a new look for your brand is exciting. But it’s what happens behind the scenes that really matters. Overlook it, and it could quietly undo all of your hard work.
Some of the circumstances where website migration is worth it include:
- You’re Rebranding your Business and Need to Change Your Domain
- Merging Multiple Websites or Businesses
- Switching CMS or Platform
- Entering Into New Markets
- Recovering from an Online Penalty
- Moving from HTTP to HTTPS
- Recovering from Previous or Current Technical or SEO Issues
Pre-Migration SEO Checklist
On-Page Content Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| Page Titles | Confirm that all page titles match the previous site’s titles or have been strategically updated. |
| Heading Structures | Ensure headings follow the same logical hierarchy as the old site to maintain clarity and SEO value. |
| Meta Descriptions | Verify that meta descriptions are either carried over or improved while maintaining keyword relevance. |
| Internal Linking | Check that all internal links are present and point to the correct new URLs, reflecting the old structure. |
| Alt Text for Images | Confirm all images have appropriate, descriptive alt text carried over or improved from the old site. |
| Internationalisation (if applicable) | If the site is multilingual, confirm that hreflang tags are accurate and maintained. |
Schema & Markup Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| Schema Markup | Verify that the same schema types (e.g., Article, Product, FAQ) used on the old site are implemented correctly. |
Technical Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| 301 Redirects | Ensure all old URLs are redirected to the appropriate new URLs to maintain SEO value. |
| Broken Links | Run a site crawl to identify and fix any broken internal or external links before launch. |
| Canonical Tags | Confirm canonical tags are correctly set, mirroring old site logic where appropriate. |
| XML Sitemap | Generate and verify a new XML sitemap, ensuring it reflects the new URL structure. |
| Robots.txt & Nonindex | Check robots.txt and ensure no unintended noindex directives remain from staging. |
| Mobile-Friendliness | Test the redesigned site’s mobile responsiveness and compliance with mobile-first indexing standards. |
| WordPress Permalinks | Confirm the permalink structure matches the previously used settings or follows a new, SEO-driven format. |
Performance Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| Page Speed & Core Web Vitals | Test site speed and Core Web Vitals (e.g., using Lighthouse) and compare to the old site’s metrics. |
| Caching & CDN | Verify that caching plugins and CDNs are properly configured for optimal site performance |
Analytics & Tracking Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| Google Analytics/GA4 | Ensure tracking codes are properly implemented and collecting data. |
| Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools | Verify site is linked and verified; submit sitemaps. |
| Other Tracking Pixels (e.g. Meta, LinkedIn) | Confirm previously used pixels are correctly added. |
Comparative Review Checklist
| Checklist Item | Description/Check |
| Incoming/Ongoing Links | Spot check pages to ensure total incoming and outgoing links match or exceed old site counts. |
| Content Party | Confirm key textual and media content from the old site is present and not inadvertently removed. |
Why Does SEO Get Affected During Migration?
Google really does like to overreact, and that isn’t anything new. Something as simple in theory, such as tweaking a URL, switching domains, reshuffling your content, or moving across to a new host, can throw a search engine off balance.
If the SEO migration process is rushed or handled poorly, it can significantly tank your organic traffic, SEO rankings, and leave users feeling frustrated with the overall interface experience.
Factors that may impact your SEO during website migration can include:
- Faulty 301 Redirects: A 301 redirect is basically a polite nudge to Google: ‘Hey, that page you’re looking for has moved. Don’t send people to the old address; this new one is where they should land instead. A faulty 301 redirect results in the loss of your SEO value that you’ve built up over time.
- Loss of Backlink Equity: Backlinks are those links from other websites that point to your website, and these play a significant role in SEO strength. This can be as simple as changing your domain name. All links must be updated and handled correctly to ensure your hard work isn’t lost.
- Crawl Faults/Indexing Delays: When a business migrates its website, problems arise when little things are overlooked. Search engines struggle when they encounter broken links, redirect loops, or experience missing pages. This will hurt your website’s crawlability and can slow down the re-indexing of your site.
- Content Changes: Search engines need time to crawl; as a result, significant changes to content, headings, and data can all result in a drop in SEO rankings. Content on your website will need to be reviewed and updated to ensure relevance. Monitor keyword performance, and make necessary adjustments are trends in your SEO arise.
- Technical SEO Issues: All platforms have their own set of technical requirements, and because of this, your website can suffer from a technical point of view if it isn’t built to the right configuration. It is essential you optimise your website, minimise code, and implement relevant caching mechanisms to improve the speed and overall usability of your website.
Types of Website Migrations
There are various types of website migrations, each requiring careful attention to ensure success.
- Existing-Domain Migration: A complete redesign or overhaul of your URL/site structure on the same domain.
- New-Domain Migration: The highest-risk change, shifting from one domain to another, which can impact SEO for weeks or months.
- CMS Migration: Switching platforms, like moving from WordPress to Shopify, affecting site architecture and backend functionality.
- Security Migration: Upgrading from HTTP to HTTPS for better security and SEO ranking.
- Site Architecture Changes: Rearranging your URL structure or navigation, which affects search engine crawling and indexing.
- Subdomain Migration: Moving content between subdomains, impacting crawling and authority flow.
- Content Overhaul: Rewriting, merging, or splitting pages, which can affect keyword rankings and SEO.
- Website Redesign: Changing front-end elements that could disrupt metadata, headings, or layouts.
- Hosting or Server Migrations: Moving to a new server without changing your domain or CMS can improve performance, but requires careful monitoring to avoid disruptions.
Each migration type presents unique challenges, both SEO and non-SEO related, requiring a tailored plan for success.
Other Pre-Migration Considerations
- Define Your Goals: Determine what it is exactly that you wish to achieve through your migration. This could be to maintain organic traffic, rankings, and conversions. Once your primary goal has been identified, you put yourself in the best position to begin the site migration process.
AEK Tip: Don’t just focus on what it is you want today. Instead, imagine where you want to be six months from here. Clear goals from the start make the whole process far less stressful down the line.
- Run a Crawl on the Current Site: Crawling your existing website helps you understand website structure and download a copy of it so you can use it post-migration for comparison or import. Capture full URL inventory, metadata, site architecture, and technical issues like broken links and canonical setup using tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs. This will allow you to know how many pages you have indexed, internal link structure, and other key information from a crawl, which will ensure you have a similar structure post-migration.
AEK Tip: View this crawl as taking a full-body scan of your website. You want to know every nook and cranny like the back of your hand, because a missing page post-migration is a tiny disaster waiting to happen.
- Benchmark Your Current Performance: Export reports on top-performing pages, traffic sources, rankings, backlinks, and Core Web Vitals. (Current traffic statistics, backlink report, XML sitemap of your website, all the content, including posts, pages, tags, categories, media and others)
AEK Tip: Go further than the numbers, look out for patterns in the content, and find the pages that could be unsung heroes of your migration.
- Gather a Pre-Migration Keyword Ranking: A Keyword ranking report is helpful for comparison and to identify migration issues so they can be addressed on time. This provides a baseline to track performance and identify potential issues. It allows you to address any negative shifts promptly and assess the impact of the changes.
AEK Tip: Treat your keyword report like a compass of sorts. In the aftermath of a migration, you’ll be able to see immediately if you’re moving in the right direction if you need to take a new bearing.
- Prepare and Organise Planned Analytics & Tracking Tools: You will want to set up all of the programs you wish to use throughout the process. These programs include: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog and any other tracking tools that will be used on your new website. Missing carrying over analytics when launching a new website is a critical misstep, as it is essential to tracking your website data.
AEK Tip: Analytics are beyond crucial; they are the lifeline of your migration. Forgetting them or ignoring them is like flying blind. You can’t know what worked or what didn’t unless you have the information.
- Set Up A Strategic Launch: You must pick a low-traffic time for the launch of your website to minimise impact in the case of bugs, glitches, or downtime. Having a rollback plan in place ensures that if there is a failure during launch that you can quickly revert to your previous website without any major disruptions to your traffic.
AEK Tip: This is not the be-all and end-all or a red-carpet screening. This launch is pretty much a dress rehearsal. A calm, careful launch saves headaches and keeps both Google and your users happy.
- Create a Backup: To ensure that you cover every base, it is advised to create a complete backup of your website and all of its content to ensure data safety. In the event that something goes awry, backing up your site ensures a quick recovery. Without a backup in place, even a small error could result in a permanent erosion of important site information.
AEK Tip: Never underestimate the power of a backup. It’s your safety net, and the difference between a small hiccup and a full-blown crisis.
- Make Key Stakeholders Aware: Ensure that you inform all internal employees, teams, clients and stakeholders of the migration date and provide a rollback plan in case major issues arise.
AEK Tip: Communication is often half the battle when it comes to change in any respect. If everyone knows what’s coming, there’s far less panic, far more control, and crucially more understanding of expectations.
What is Crawling on Google?
Website crawling on Google is the process by which Google discovers and reads your website’s pages. This process involves visiting your site, following links, and collecting information from each page, so that it can correctly index your website and show it in search results.
As much as we’d like to think differently, Google, at the end of the day, is still just a computer. It does not have an unlimited source of power, no matter how magical we imagine it to be.
In a perfect world, Google could process every page on every website every day, but that just isn’t the reality. How much Google is actually able to process completely depends on your crawl budget. A new site may be crawled straight away, or it could take Google up to 60 days to index every page.
Crawling is essential, and if Google can’t crawl your page, whether due to broken links or slow page loading, your content and business can be lost in the algorithm.
Conclusion:
So, are you ready to follow the guide and take your business to the next level through a website migration?
Good, we think you’re ready too, but remember….
To conduct a successful website migration that pushes your business forward instead of backwards, you need to be prepared, informed and clear in your actions and goals moving forward.
Your launch is only ever as good as your preparation beforehand and your vigilance in monitoring afterwards.
Use this checklist to make sure you maintain your search rankings and don’t lose your influence in your field, all while giving your users the most seamless experience possible.
If you are planning on engaging a website SEO migration or a full website redesign, reach out to the expert team at AEK Media today. We specialise in ensuring you maintain visibility and see continued growth throughout your SEO website migration journey.
Let’s talk today, and let’s take your business’s online presence to the next level.
FAQs
- What is website migration in SEO?
Website migration relates to the process of making any significant changes to a website’s content, platform, structure, domain, or URL. This can include changing the internal page structure or doing an entirely new redesign of the website.
- Does changing websites affect SEO?
Yes, your SEO can be impacted if you are doing a full overhaul of your website, if you are not careful. There are many elements you will need to pay attention to when engaging in website SEO migration to ensure that your rankings do not completely tank. Actions such as changing a URL, shifting to a new domain, restructuring the layout of your content, or switching hosting platforms can all impact SEO.
- Does SEO increase website traffic?
Yes, SEO drives website traffic. If you are the number one ranked website on Google, you will the majority of the time, be the first voice that people see when researching a specific topic or service. The higher your SEO rankings are, the greater the advantage you’ll have in the digital landscape. The more your rankings improve, the more traffic your website will get.
- How do I transfer SEO from one website to another?
To be able to maintain your current SEO rankings when moving from one website to another, you must implement 301 redirects from all old URLs to their new counterparts. This move preserves link equity. On-page elements such as titles, meta descriptions, headings and content will either need to be retained or improved. Keep the same website schema and submit your updated sitemaps to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. You will also need to consistently monitor performance, rankings, and crawl during and after the transition period.
- What is a post-migration checklist?
A post-migration checklist is a variety of benchmarks and checks you make to ensure that a website migration has been successful and that it has not, in fact, damaged your SEO rankings, performance, or user experience. It will show you as well if any areas need reviewing or improving. It is an essential step and ensures a smooth transition after launch.
- What is the first step in website migration?
The first step when engaging in website SEO migration is to ensure that it is necessary, as it is a complex process that will require significant time dedicated to it. If you decided that it is the right move for your business, then it is time to define a set of clear goals, and migration objectives.
- Is a website migration necessary for SEO?
Yes, sometimes a website migration can be necessary to maintain your rankings in the online algorithm, and not get lost within the shuffle of content. A well-planned and executed migration can be a great opportunity to improve SEO and get your website seen by more users.
- Is SEO essential for my website to be successful?
In this day and age, yes, if you are going to invest in SEO from day one, your website and business, no matter how good it is, are practically useless from an online impact perspective.
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