SEO for website migrations: The dos and don'ts

First things first: Why does a website migration affect SEO?
 

Aha! That old chestnut… Google knows your site pretty well, in fact, it’s already spent quite a bit of time crawling and indexing it. The trouble is, a website migration can alter your URLs, content and site structure, leaving search engines wondering where everything's gone.

That doesn't necessarily mean your rankings will suffer, but if Google can't find important pages or understand where they've moved, they could take a hit. Ruh roh.

Before the migration: Do your SEO homework

Before you start rebuilding or moving content, it's worth taking stock of what's already working. Which pages bring in the most organic traffic? Which search terms are people using to find you? And which pages are generating enquiries?

Audit your existing site

Google Search Console and your analytics platform will be your best friends here. We'd recommend checking:

• Your most important organic landing pages and their rankings.
• Search queries generating clicks and impressions.
• Pages that generate enquiries or conversions.
• Pages with valuable backlinks.
• Any existing technical SEO issues.

You'll also want to crawl your website using a tool like Screaming Frog. This will give you a record of existing URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonical tags and response codes.

Put it all together and this info gives you something concrete to compare against after launch. It also helps you identify which pages you need to be particularly careful with during the move.

Oh, and while you're at it, be on the lookout for broken links, redirect chains and any duplicate content.  A migration is the perfect opportunity to fix those existing problems, not drag them along to your shiny new website.

Plan your redirects

If your website migration involves changing URLs, redirects are essential. They tell search engines and visitors where a page has moved, helping preserve access to existing content.

For example, if your old website has a page at:

/services/web-development

  And the new version lives at:

/expertise/web-development

A permanent 301 redirect should point the old URL to its new location. 

Sounds simple enough, but some large websites can have hundreds (or even thousands) of URLs to account for. That's why we'd recommend creating a redirect map that matches existing URLs to their most relevant new destinations.

Oh, and please, please, please don't redirect everything to the homepage. It's not very helpful for visitors and doesn't give search engines a meaningful replacement for the original content.

Don't forget older blog articles, PDFs and other resources either. They might still attract visitors or have valuable backlinks pointing to them.

Be careful with content changes

Website migrations often happen at the same time as a redesign, which makes it tempting to rewrite or reorganise everything all at once. Sometimes that's necessary, but be careful with pages that are already performing well in search.

If a service page ranks for an important keyword, removing half its content or substantially changing its focus could affect its visibility.

So, where appropriate, preserve existing page titles, headings and relevant copy. And if you're making changes, make sure they're deliberate and informed by your SEO audit.

The same goes for your site's structure. Plan where important pages will sit and how they'll link to one another, so visitors and search engines can still find what they're looking for.

Pick your launch date carefully

If possible, schedule your migration for a quieter period when your website typically gets less traffic. That way, if anything goes wrong, fewer visitors will be affected and you'll have time to fix it.

Before launch: Don't forget the technical SEO checks

Testing, testing, one, two, three…

Once the new website is built, it's time for a thorough technical SEO MOT. Ideally, you'll do this on a staging version of the website before it goes live.

Here's what we'd check:

• Redirects: Do old URLs point to the correct new pages, without unnecessary chains?
• Internal links: Are navigation, service pages, blog posts and case studies linking directly to the correct URLs, without broken links?
• Metadata: Have important page titles, descriptions and headings been carried across?
• Indexing: Have any important pages accidentally been marked noindex or blocked from crawling in robots.txt (see below)?
• Canonical tags: Are they pointing to the correct versions of your pages?
• XML sitemap: Does it contain the correct, indexable URLs?
• Structured data: Has your schema markup been retained and validated?
• Performance: Does the website work properly on desktop and mobile, with acceptable loading speeds?
• Analytics: Are tracking, enquiry forms and conversion events working as expected?

Make sure Google can crawl your site

Staging websites are often kept out of the SERPS using noindex tags, or blocked from being crawled through robots.txt. Just make sure these aren't accidentally carried over to your live site, or Google could struggle to find your pages. Not quite the launch party you were after…

After launch: Do keep an eye on performance

The migration isn't finished the moment your new website goes live. Google still needs time to crawl the updated pages, follow redirects and process changes to your site's structure.

Start by checking that your redirects are working on the live website, your sitemap is accessible and important pages can be indexed. And if you've changed your website domain, you may also need to use Google's Change of Address tool.

Then keep a close eye on Google Search Console and your analytics.

Look out for:

• Changes in organic clicks, impressions and rankings.
• Important pages disappearing from Google's index.
• Unexpected 404 errors or redirect issues.
• Drops in organic traffic to key landing pages.
• Enquiry forms or conversion tracking that have stopped working.

If an important page suddenly loses visibility, investigate what's changed. It could be a redirect issue, missing content, an incorrect canonical tag or who knows what?

Final thoughts…

The key is to make SEO part of the process from the very beginning, instead of something you panic about once the new site is live.

For more technical detail, Google has its own guidance on website migrations, which is worth a read. And if you're planning to move to a new platform or rebuild your existing website, take a look at our CMS migration services to see how we could help.