A website migration is any major change to your site's URLs, platform, domain, structure or design. Each of these can change the signals Google uses to rank your pages.
Our SEO migration services make sure the pages, content and links that earn your traffic today still exist, still connect, and still get found once the new site goes live. We plan with you before launch, test the new site on staging, check it on launch day, and monitor Search Console until traffic settles.
Tell us your current site, your new platform and your launch date. The earlier we start, the more risk we can remove. Prefer to talk? Book a thirty minute call.
/services/seo/ 301 /seo-services/ /about-us/ 301 /about/ /product/blue-widget-xl/ 301 /products/widgets/blue-widget-xl/ Most migration traffic losses come from avoidable mistakes, not bad luck. These are the ones we check for on every project.
Pages that earned rankings and backlinks disappear because nobody mapped them to the new site.
Google tends to treat irrelevant redirects like missing pages, so the old page's value doesn't carry over. Google's site-move guidance.
A noindex tag or a robots.txt "Disallow: /" written for the test site reaches production, and Google stops indexing the new site.
Copy, FAQs or whole pages that ranked are removed because they "didn't fit the new design."
Templates reset page titles to a default, and pages lose the wording that matched their searches.
Canonical tags still reference the old domain, staging URLs or HTTP versions.
Every click passes through a redirect, and the old ones sometimes form chains.
Analytics or conversion tracking isn't installed on launch, so a real drop and a tracking gap look the same.
SEO migration is the process of planning, implementing and checking a major website change so the site keeps the organic search signals it has already earned: URLs, content, internal links, backlinks, metadata, and search engine access. It isn't only about redirects. Redirects are the safety net; the planning around them decides whether the new site starts strong.
| Migration type | Example | Main SEO risk |
|---|---|---|
| Website redesign | New design, same domain and platform | Content, headings and internal links quietly change |
| CMS or platform change | WordPress to a headless CMS, WooCommerce to Shopify | URL patterns change across the whole site |
| Ecommerce replatforming | Thousands of products and categories moving platforms | Scale: every unmapped product URL is a lost page |
| Domain change | oldbrand.com.au to newbrand.com.au | Every URL changes at once; brand signals reset |
| URL restructure | /services/seo/ to /seo-services/ | Mass redirects and internal link updates |
| HTTP to HTTPS | Moving to secure URLs | Mixed signals if any version stays live |
| Site consolidation | Merging two or more sites into one | Overlapping content competing or lost |
| International restructure | Adding /au/ and /nz/ folders | Hreflang, canonical and duplicate problems |
Some short-term movement is normal, even in well-run migrations, while Google recrawls and reprocesses the site. Google's own guidance says a site move can cause temporary fluctuations and that large sites take longer to settle.
What a good migration controls is everything that's avoidable: missing redirects, lost content, blocked crawling and broken signals. There's no reliable industry-wide figure for "how much traffic sites lose," and any agency quoting a guaranteed preservation percentage can't back it up. We commit to the method and the checks, then show you the data.
Inventory, benchmark, map, prepare, test, launch, validate and monitor. An SEO migration starts weeks before launch and ends weeks after.
A crawl alone misses pages. We build the URL inventory from several sources:
Each URL is tagged Keep, Change, Redirect, Remove or Review. Pages with traffic, conversions or backlinks are flagged as protected.
Before anything changes, we capture the baseline you'll compare against after launch:
Without a baseline, nobody can tell whether a post-launch dip is a migration problem, a seasonal pattern or a tracking gap.
Every protected URL gets a one-to-one redirect to the most relevant equivalent page on the new site.
| Old URL | New URL | Action | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
/services/seo/ | /seo-services/ | 301 | Same service, new path |
/about-us/ | /about/ | 301 | Same page, shorter URL |
/product/blue-widget-xl/ | /products/widgets/blue-widget-xl/ | 301 | Product moved into category path |
/2019-promo/ | (none) | Review | No equivalent; keep, redirect to parent, or let 404 |
/old-category/ | /new-category/ | 301 | Category renamed |
The developers get a written SEO specification, not a list of concerns:
We crawl the staging site before launch and compare it with the old one:
Issues go to the developers as tickets with the URL, the problem and the fix, before launch day.
On launch day we:
In the weeks after launch, we compare the new site against the baseline:
| Area | Before launch | After launch |
|---|---|---|
| Protected URLs | Inventoried | Redirect tested |
| Indexed pages | Baseline count | Compared weekly |
| Organic landing pages | Baseline clicks | Monitored by page |
| Titles and H1s | Exported | Validated |
| Canonicals | Baseline | Validated |
| Internal links | Baseline | Re-crawled |
| Sitemap | Old | New, submitted |
| Conversions | Baseline | Tracked |
We monitor Search Console, analytics and crawl data, weekly at first and then monthly. We watch 404s, indexing status, priority rankings and landing-page traffic until the site stabilises. Anything unexpected is diagnosed and fixed, not explained away.
Store migrations multiply every risk by the size of the catalogue. Platforms structure URLs differently. Shopify, for example, uses fixed path patterns such as /products/ and /collections/, so a WooCommerce or custom store moving to Shopify usually changes every product and category URL.
We map at scale using spreadsheets and pattern rules, then spot-check the highest-value URLs by hand. For ongoing store work, see our ecommerce SEO service, Shopify SEO and B2B ecommerce SEO.
A domain change moves every URL at once, so the redirect map must cover the whole site, not just the top pages. On top of the standard process, we:
A redesign often keeps the same URLs but changes content, headings, navigation and templates, which is exactly why it's underestimated. The URLs survive, but the content that earned the rankings doesn't. We compare old and new pages side by side so the new design improves the experience without removing what Google was ranking.
Adding country or language versions, or restructuring existing ones, needs hreflang, canonicals and sitemaps that agree with each other. See our international SEO service.
It's later than ideal, but often fixable. We work backwards.
The sooner recovery starts, the better, because old URLs that 404 for months gradually lose the value they carried. Recovery work runs alongside our technical SEO service.
Scope, risks ranked by impact, and decisions needed from your team
Traffic, rankings, indexation and conversions before launch
Every URL found, with its status and protection level
Old URL to new URL, action and reason, ready for developers
Content, metadata, canonicals, robots, sitemap, schema and tracking requirements
Pre-launch issues as developer tickets
Every check completed, with results
Old vs new comparison, issues found and fixes made
Start SEO planning as soon as the new site's structure is being decided, ideally before design sign-off, and at least several weeks before launch. Planning at the last minute limits what can be fixed before go-live.
Migration work is quoted as a project, based on the number of URLs, the type of migration, platform complexity and how long you want post-launch monitoring to run.
Best forTeams with a capable developer who need the SEO plan
IncludesRisk assessment, baseline, URL inventory, redirect map, build specification
Best forMost redesigns and replatforms
IncludesEverything in the plan, plus staging audit, launch-day checks and post-launch monitoring
Best forLarge, ecommerce, domain or multi-site moves
IncludesEverything above, plus implementation support, extended monitoring and recovery fixes
You get a written, scoped quote before any work starts. See SEO packages and pricing for our wider services.
SEO migration services protect a website's search visibility when it changes URLs, platform, domain, structure or design. The work covers URL inventory, redirect mapping, content and metadata preservation, pre-launch testing, launch checks and post-launch monitoring.
As early as possible, ideally while the new structure is still being designed. Early involvement lets SEO requirements shape the build, instead of being patched in after launch.
The most common causes are missing or irrelevant redirects, deleted content, changed titles and headings, staging blocks reaching production, canonical errors and broken internal links. Some temporary fluctuation is also normal while Google reprocesses the site.
No one can guarantee that. A well-planned migration removes the avoidable causes of loss, and many sites settle at or above their previous level, but timing and outcome depend on the site and the competition.
Links pointing to old URLs keep working through 301 redirects to the matching new pages. For the most valuable links, we may also ask the linking site to update the URL.
No. Each valuable URL redirects to its closest equivalent. Blanket homepage redirects tend to be treated like missing pages and waste the old page's value.
Yes. We export them from the old site, specify them for the new one, and validate them on staging and after launch.
Yes. We crawl and audit the staging site, test the redirect map, and send issues to your developers as tickets before go-live.
Yes. Moves between platforms change URL patterns across the catalogue, so we map products, categories and pages at scale and test them before launch.
We can implement them directly on many platforms, or supply a developer-ready redirect file. Either way, we test every redirect.
It's quoted as a project based on site size, migration type and monitoring length. You receive a written scope and price before work starts.
Yes. We rebuild the old URL list, find which pages lost traffic, fix the causes and monitor recovery. Starting quickly matters.
Tell us what's changing and when. We'll reply with the main risks we see, what we'd protect first, and how much lead time you have to do it properly.
You'll get back