Website Migration SEO Checklist
What You Need to Consider When Changing your Website
Whether you’re rebranding your business, switching from one CMS to another, or simply refreshing the look and feel of your website, when making major changes to your website, you must consider website migration SEO.
All too often, SEO is overlooked when making changes to websites, and for businesses that rely on organic traffic to drive sales and conversions, the effects can devastate their business.
The right time to consider SEO is before you make changes to your website, so we have built this comprehensive guide to help you ensure your website migration is as seamless as possible.
What is website migration SEO?
Website migration SEO involves managing the search engine optimisation aspects of moving a website from one domain to another, changing its structure, content management system (CMS), or overall design and user interface.
For example, you may be changing your business name and, therefore, be switching your domain. Or you may be moving your website from, say, Squarespace to WordPress. Any significant changes to your website can affect your website rankings.
This process is critical because improperly handled migrations can lead to significant drops in organic search rankings and traffic. People may choose to migrate their websites for various reasons, such as moving to a more robust and scalable CMS, rebranding with a new domain name, improving site architecture to enhance user experience and SEO, or merging multiple websites into a single, cohesive domain. Each of these changes can potentially disrupt existing search engine rankings if not managed with a focus on SEO continuity and strategic redirection.
Why it matters
Think of your website as a physical shop. If you choose to move location without signposting, your regular customers will struggle to find you, potentially leading to a loss in business.
Similarly, when you migrate a website without proper SEO considerations, search engines and users may not be able to locate your new site, resulting in lost traffic and reduced visibility. This is why website migration SEO matters: it ensures that the "digital signposts"—are correctly implemented so that search engines can index your new site efficiently and users can find you easily. Properly managing this process helps maintain your site’s authority and ranking, preserves user experience, and keeps traffic levels stable, ultimately protecting your online presence and investment.4
Will changing my website impact Search Engine Rankings?
There are almost always fluctuations in rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) when making major changes to your site—even if managed extremely carefully. Changes in structure, content, and technical setup can all prompt adjustments in how search engines evaluate and rank your website. However, the reasons for changing a website are usually to improve customer experience or update your brand, so don’t let the potential for temporary ranking drops deter you.
Updating your website is an opportunity to fix existing issues and enhance its functionality, making your site more user-friendly, faster, and more aligned with current SEO best practices. By addressing these improvements, you not only boost the potential for a better user experience but also strengthen the long-term SEO health of your site, laying a solid foundation for improved rankings. Therefore, while the initial fluctuations can be concerning, the end result of a well-planned website migration is often a stronger online presence and a better platform for engaging with your audience.
Ok, so now we know why site migration SEO is important, let’s move on to how to manage it.
Pre-Migration Planning
The best time to have an SEO audit is before you start your website migration.Here are the steps to ensure that your existing website is fully looked at, prior to starting to migrate.
Take an inventory of your website.
The first thing we recommend is actually to inventory your existing assets on site. This will mean not just your website pages but downloads such as PDFs, your images on-site, and metadata.
One of the best tools, which is free (if your website is less than 500 URLs is Screaming Frog. If your site has over 500 URLs, and you want to use Screaming Frog, a licence will cost £199 for an annual subscription.
If you put your domain URL into the Screaming Frog Search Bar, you will get a full list of your URLs, metadata, images and more.
Export and Categorise Data:
URLs: Export a complete list of URLs found during the crawl. This list will help you map old URLs to new ones, which is vital for setting up redirects and maintaining link equity.
Meta Data: Document all meta titles and descriptions. These are crucial for SEO and help ensure that the meta information aligns with SEO best practices post-migration.
Content Analysis: Note the content on each page, particularly focusing on high-value pages that drive significant traffic or conversions. This analysis will aid in determining which content to prioritise during the migration.
These documents should act as your “roadmap” when creating the structure for your new website.
Assess and Prioritise your Pages
The name of the game here is to understand which of your pages are currently valuable to you.
There are several factors to consider, but we recommend that you focus on understanding.
What pages are regularly viewed by website visitors
What pages currently drive your traffic (and how)
What pages have good existing rankings in search engines
What pages have a good backlink profile (e.g. other websites link back to them).
There are several tools you can use to prioritise your web pages; here are some of them
Using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to Assess and Prioritise Your Webpages during a site migration
When planning a website migration, it's crucial to understand how your current site performs and which pages hold the most value. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers comprehensive tools to gauge traffic, engagement, and conversions, providing a data-driven basis for prioritisation. By analysing metrics such as page views, user interactions, and conversion rates, you can identify which pages are critical to your site’s success and should be prioritised during the migration process.
This approach ensures that your most valuable content continues to perform well and supports a seamless transition.
Engagement Metrics:
Look for metrics like average engagement time, event count, and conversions by page. These metrics can help you identify not only the most visited pages but also the ones where users are most engaged.
Conversion Tracking:
Conversions Report: Set up and review the 'Conversions' report in GA4 to see which pages are driving actions like sales, sign-ups, or other important user activities. Ensure these pages are prioritised during migration to retain their functionality and effectiveness.
Using SEMrush for Competitive Analysis and Keyword Prioritisation
SEMrush is an invaluable tool for conducting competitive analysis and keyword research, which are crucial aspects of any SEO strategy. Before undertaking a website migration, leveraging SEMrush to understand your site's positioning within the competitive landscape can inform decisions about which content to prioritise.
By tracking keyword rankings and performing site audits, you can pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your site's SEO. This insight allows you to make informed decisions about content updates, focus on high-performing keywords, and address technical issues that could impact your post-migration SEO performance.
Unlike the other tools, SEMrush is a paid-for platform, with subscriptions starting at $129 per month.
Organic Research:
Position Tracking: Use SEMrush’s Position Tracking tool to monitor your site’s rankings for key keywords. This tool helps you understand the SEO value of different pages based on their keyword rankings.
Competitive Positioning Map: This feature allows you to see your site’s position in the search landscape alongside your competitors. It helps identify which keywords and associated pages are critical in maintaining your competitive edge.
Site Audit:
SEO Audit:
Perform a comprehensive technical SEO audit with SEMrush to identify issues like broken links, slow-loading pages, and poor mobile usability. This tool provides a prioritised list of issues that you can address to improve each page's SEO before the migration.
Backlink Analysis:
Backlink Audit: Use the SEMrush Backlink Audit tool to review the quality and quantity of backlinks to your site. High-value pages with strong backlink profiles should be carefully migrated to maintain their authority and ranking.
Integrating Google Search Console in Migration Planning
Google Search Console provides vital insights directly from Google's perspective, making it an essential tool for any website migration strategy. It offers specific data on how your site is indexed and appears in search results, highlighting potential issues that could affect your visibility. Using Google Search Console to monitor and address indexing status, crawl errors, and search performance allows you to mitigate risks associated with site restructuring.
This ensures that your website maintains its search equity and visibility throughout the migration process.
Performance Report:
Query and Page Data: Navigate to the 'Performance' section to view detailed data on how your pages perform in search results. You can analyse impressions, clicks, click-through rates (CTR), and the average position of your pages. This report helps you understand which pages are most visible and effective in attracting search traffic.
Identify Top Pages: Focus on pages that have high impressions and clicks, as these are likely bringing significant organic traffic to your site. These should be prioritised during the migration to ensure they retain their ranking and visibility.
Coverage Report:
Error Insights: Check the 'Coverage' report to identify any crawling or indexing issues currently affecting your site. Addressing these issues before migrating can help avoid amplifying them on the new site.
Indexed Pages: Ensure all important pages are properly indexed. Monitor the status of indexed pages during and after the migration to quickly resolve any issues that prevent pages from being indexed.
URL Inspection Tool:
Test Live URLs: Use the URL Inspection tool to fetch and scan individual URLs to see how Google views these pages. This tool is particularly useful for testing whether Google can access important pages after migration.
Sitemap Submission: After the migration, submit your new sitemaps through Google Search Console to help Google discover and index the new structure more quickly.
Enhancements Reports:
Mobile Usability: With mobile-first indexing, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is crucial. Use the Mobile Usability report to identify pages that might have issues on mobile devices.
Core Web Vitals: Monitor the Core Web Vitals report to understand page performance in terms of loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Optimising these can enhance user experience and contribute positively to SEO.
Combining the analytical power of Google Analytics 4, SEMrush, and Google Search Console gives you a comprehensive view of your website’s current performance. This triad of tools allows you to effectively prioritise high-value pages based on user engagement, competitive standing, and their status in Google's ecosystem, ensuring a smooth transition during your website migration.
Set Benchmarks
Set Benchmarks: A Guide to Establishing Pre-Migration Metrics
1. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Identify Core Metrics: Decide which metrics are most important for your website’s success. Common KPIs include organic traffic, search engine rankings, conversion rates, page load time, and bounce rate.
Goal Setting: Establish clear, quantifiable goals for each KPI. These goals should reflect your website's current performance and serve as a baseline for comparison after the migration.
2. Use Analytics Tools to Gather Data:
Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Utilize GA4 to record current traffic levels, user engagement, and conversion metrics. Make sure to document data such as user demographics, traffic sources, and behaviour patterns.
Google Search Console: Collect data on your website’s search performance, including impressions, clicks, and average position for your key queries. This will help you understand how well your site is currently optimised for search engines.
3. Document Technical Performance:
Page Speed Insights: Use tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights to assess the loading speed of your website. Page speed is a vital SEO factor and user experience element, so it’s important to benchmark current performance levels.
Mobile Usability: Ensure your site is optimised for mobile devices by checking mobile usability reports in Google Search Console. As mobile traffic continues to grow, maintaining a mobile-friendly website is essential.
4. Create a Benchmark Report:
Comprehensive Reporting: Compile the data into a comprehensive benchmark report. This report should clearly outline all current metrics and serve as a reference point for evaluating post-migration performance.
Regular Updates: Consider updating this benchmark periodically in the lead-up to the migration. This can help capture any significant changes that might occur before the migration process begins.
By setting these benchmarks, you can create a detailed snapshot of your website's pre-migration health, which is indispensable for measuring the impact of your migration efforts and quickly addressing any negative effects.
Technical Assessment: Evaluating Your Website Pre-Migration
1. Review Current Site Architecture:
Site Structure Analysis: Examine the current hierarchy and structure of your website. Assess how content is organised, how pages link to one another, and whether the structure is logical and SEO-friendly.
Navigation Review: Ensure that the navigation is intuitive and aligns with user expectations, which is crucial for both user experience and SEO.
2. Evaluate URL Structures:
Consistency and Clarity: Check that URLs are consistent, logical, and keyword-optimized. Good URL structure helps search engines, and users understand and navigate your site more effectively.
Legacy Issues: Identify any legacy URL structures that might require updating or standardisation to meet current SEO best practices.
3. Check Technical SEO Elements:
Meta Tags and Headers: Review and document the use of meta tags, including titles and descriptions, and header tags across your site. These are critical for SEO and need to be correctly mapped to the new site. Use your Screaming Frog sheet to help you to map this out.
Schema Markup: Assess the current implementation of schema markup to ensure that structured data is used effectively to enhance search engine understanding and visibility.
Google's Rich Results Test: This is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to test your webpage’s schema markup to see if it's eligible for rich results in Google's search results. It checks for correct formatting and errors in your structured data and provides detailed feedback.
Google Search Console: Within Google Search Console, the "Enhancements" section (if schema is detected) will show you details about the types of schema markup implemented on your site, along with any issues or errors that Google has detected. This is useful for monitoring and maintaining schema implementations across a site.
Structured Data Testing Tool by Schema.org: This tool, provided by schema.org, allows you to validate schema markup by inputting a URL or copying and pasting code. It supports multiple schema vocabularies and provides a comprehensive breakdown of the structured data types found, along with any errors or warnings.
4. Assess Content Management System (CMS) Requirements:
Current CMS Evaluation: Review the capabilities and limitations of your current CMS. Determine if it meets your needs or if a new CMS would better support your website’s goals.
New CMS Considerations: If migrating to a new CMS, evaluate potential options based on scalability, SEO features, ease of use, and support for advanced functionalities.
5. Analyze Mobile Responsiveness and Speed:
Mobile-Friendly Test: Use tools like Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to determine how well your website performs on mobile devices. Mobile responsiveness is a critical ranking factor and vital for user experience.
Speed Testing: Utilize tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to benchmark your site’s loading times. Speed is a crucial factor for SEO and user retention, especially post-migration.
6. Implement Preliminary Tests:
Mock Migration: Consider setting up a staged version of your site to test the migration process, including the transfer of data, functionality checks, and preliminary SEO configurations. This can help identify potential issues before they affect the live site.
7. Document Findings and Recommendations:
Reporting: Create a detailed report of all findings from the technical assessment. This report should include actionable recommendations for addressing any issues identified during the assessment.
Stakeholder Review: Present this report to all relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment and discuss any necessary changes or investments before proceeding with the migration.
By thoroughly assessing the technical aspects of your website, you can ensure a smoother migration process and set the stage for a successful transition that minimises SEO disruptions and maximises site performance in the new environment.
During Migration: Your SEO Migration Plan
1. Implement URL Mapping and 301 Redirects:
Map Old URLs to New Ones: Create a comprehensive mapping from old URLs to their corresponding new URLs. This step is crucial to retain the SEO value and user access to previously indexed pages.
Set Up 301 Redirects: Implement 301 redirects for all mapped URLs. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes the majority of link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page. Carefully setting up these redirects minimises the loss of traffic and helps maintain your search rankings.
Testing Redirects: Before going live, test the redirects in a staging environment to ensure they work correctly and that no major issues will occur post-migration.
2. Update On-Site Optimization:
Meta Tags and Titles: Ensure that all pages on the new site have optimised meta titles and descriptions. These should be transferred from the old site or updated to improve relevance and performance.
Header Tags and Structured Data: Maintain the hierarchy of header tags and check that schema markup is correctly implemented on the new site to enhance SEO and the appearance in SERPs.
Update Internal Links: Adjust all internal links to point to the new URLs. This includes links in content, navigation menus, footers, and any other site elements.
3. Maintain Content Integrity:
Avoid Content Duplication: Ensure the new site does not create duplicate content issues. This can be monitored using tools like Screaming Frog or SEMrush to scan for content duplication.
Quality Control: Check that all content has been correctly migrated over to the new site, including text, images, videos, and other media. Verify that formatting is consistent and that no elements have been lost in the transition.
4. Monitor Technical SEO:
Crawl the New Site: After migration, use an SEO spider tool to crawl the new site to ensure that it can be indexed effectively by search engines. Look for crawl errors, broken links, or inaccessible pages.
Mobile Responsiveness and Speed Tests: Conduct tests to ensure the new site is fully responsive and loads quickly across all devices, as these factors are critical for both SEO and user experience.
5. Communication with Search Engines:
Update Sitemaps: Submit updated XML sitemaps to Google Search Console and any other relevant search engines. This helps them find and index the new structure more efficiently.
Monitor Indexation: Regularly check Google Search Console for how quickly the new pages are being indexed and for any crawl errors that might be present.
6. Immediate Post-Launch Monitoring:
Traffic and Rankings: Closely monitor traffic and rankings after the migration. Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track changes and address any unexpected drops or issues.
Feedback Loop: Be prepared to make quick adjustments based on the feedback from these monitoring tools and from real user interactions on the new site.
By thoroughly planning and carefully executing these during-migration actions, you can ensure a smoother transition with minimal disruption to your site’s SEO performance and user experience. This proactive approach helps stabilise your site in its new environment and sets the foundation for future growth.
Post-Migration: Key Actions for Ensuring Stability and Growth
1. Monitor Traffic and Rankings:
Analytics Review: Regularly check Google Analytics for any significant changes in traffic patterns. Pay special attention to bounce rates, average session duration, and conversion rates, which could indicate issues with user experience or site functionality.
Rankings Monitoring: Use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to track your rankings for key keywords. This will help you quickly identify and address any negative impacts on your SEO caused by the migration.
2. Validate Technical Implementation:
Crawl the Site Again: Post-migration, it’s essential to crawl the entire site again to ensure there are no broken links, missing pages, or redirect chains that could harm your site’s SEO.
Check Redirects: Verify that all 301 redirects are working as intended to prevent any loss of SEO value. Make sure there are no redirect loops or chains that could degrade page load performance.
3. Fix Crawl Errors and Broken Links:
Google Search Console: Utilize Google Search Console to identify and resolve any crawl errors. This tool is invaluable for spotting issues such as 404 errors, and access denied errors that can affect your site’s indexation.
Broken Link Checker: Tools like Broken Link Check can help you identify and fix broken links within your site content, which are crucial for maintaining a quality user experience and SEO strength.
4. Update External Links:
Reach Out to External Sites: If feasible, contact administrators of external sites linking to your old URLs to update their links to the new URLs. This can help reclaim link equity that might otherwise be lost through redirection.
Monitor Backlinks: Use backlink monitoring tools to ensure that high-value backlinks continue to point to the correct pages on your new site.
5. Continue Optimizing Site Content and Structure:
Content Review: Post-migration is an excellent time to review and refresh your content. Update any outdated information, add new relevant content, and optimise existing content for search engines and user engagement.
On-Page SEO Adjustments: As search engines crawl and index your new site, watch for opportunities to further optimise on-page elements like meta titles, descriptions, and header tags based on performance data.
6. Enhance User Experience:
User Feedback: Collect and analyse user feedback on the new website. Look for common issues or suggestions that could improve navigation, content accessibility, or overall user satisfaction.
Usability Testing: Consider conducting usability tests to identify areas where the site experience can be improved, ensuring the site is intuitive and easy to use for all visitors.
7. Monitor Core Web Vitals:
Performance Metrics: Regularly check Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console to ensure the site meets Google's performance standards for loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
Optimisation Efforts: If any issues are identified, work on optimising these metrics, as they are crucial factors in Google's ranking algorithms and impact user experience.
By implementing these post-migration actions, you can help stabilise your new website and position it for increased traffic, better user engagement, and higher search engine rankings. Monitoring and optimising your site continuously after migration is key to leveraging the full potential of your new platfor