A redesign is planned
New templates and navigation are being drawn, and the pages that earn visits today have not been listed.
SEO Website Migrations
Launch the new site and keep your search traffic.
A redesign or a move can wipe out years of search traffic in a weekend. We map every page to its new home, test before launch and watch after, so the leads keep coming.
What we measureSEO Website Migrations3/3
- Priority pages redirected and matched
- Index coverage after launch
- Organic landings against the pre-launch baseline
Get your free SEO audit
No cost and no commitment.
The search problem
A launch can delete traffic nobody meant to lose.
The new site goes live on a Friday. By the next week the old addresses return errors, the page that brought in the most leads has no equivalent, and a setting left over from staging is telling Google to stay out. Nothing looks broken from the homepage. The loss shows up in next month’s leads and sales.
We join before the new URLs are final. We list every page that earns search visits, give each one a destination, test the redirects on staging and check the live site the day it launches. Then we watch index coverage and landing pages until the numbers settle.
In plain terms
What is an SEO migration?
An SEO migration is the search side of any large change to a website: a redesign, a move to a new platform, a new domain or a new URL structure. The goal is that every page with search value either keeps its address or passes its standing to a new one through a permanent redirect, a rule that forwards visitors and search engines from the old address to the new.
Google publishes its own guidance for site moves, and three points in it shape our plan. Send each old address straight to its final destination, with no chain of hops between. Keep the redirects for at least a year. And change one thing at a time where you can, since a new domain, a new design and new copy launched together make any loss impossible to trace. A move is also the best moment for a technical SEO review, because faults are cheapest to fix before launch.
When to bring search into the project
The platform is changing
You are moving to Shopify, WordPress or a custom build, and the URL patterns will change with it.
The domain is changing
A rebrand or a merger means a new address for everything.
Traffic fell after a launch
The move already happened, and visits have been down ever since.
What we do in SEO migrations
We pull every address from the sitemap, a full crawl, Search Console, analytics and your backlink data. Each one is scored by the visits, leads and outside links it holds, so we know which pages the business cannot afford to lose.
Each old address gets the most relevant new one, page to page. Where the new site has no equivalent, we flag it early, so the page can be built or the loss accepted on purpose. Sending everything to the homepage is the shortcut Google can treat as a missing page.
On staging we check redirects, canonical tags, robots rules, sitemaps, internal links and what a crawler receives from each template. We confirm that the setting which hides the staging site from Google will not ship with it.
On launch day we crawl the live site and test the redirect list in full. In the weeks after, we watch index coverage, key searches and landing pages against the baseline, and fix what the live data turns up.
If you only do one thing
The launch-day checklist.
Most migration losses come from a short list of avoidable faults, and each one can be caught in the first hour after launch. Work through the list below before anyone announces the new site.
Expect some movement even when everything is right. Google says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks to settle after a move, and its own staff have described domain changes that took months. A dip that recovers is normal. A page that vanishes and stays gone is a fault, and the sooner you find it, the less it costs.
- 01Open robots.txt on the live site and confirm it does not block the whole site.
- 02View the source of the homepage and one key page, and confirm no “noindex” tag came across from staging.
- 03Test your top twenty old addresses. Each should land on its new page in one hop, with a 301 status.
- 04Submit the new sitemap in Search Console, and leave the old one in place for a while so Google finds the redirects.
- 05For a domain change, file a Change of Address in Search Console. It applies to domain moves only.
- 06Check that forms, phone links and conversion tracking still fire on the new templates.
What you get
Work you can hold.
- A full inventory of the old site, with the value of each page
- A redirect map, old address to new, reviewed line by line
- A pre-launch test report on staging
- A launch-day crawl and redirect check
- Weekly reads against the baseline until traffic settles
The readout
How we know it worked.
We record a baseline before we change anything, then read search visibility beside the actions that pay the bills.
- Priority pages redirected and matched
- Index coverage after launch
- Organic landings against the pre-launch baseline
Pricing
Your investment in being found
Three ways to invest in your business showing up when buyers search. Each package is billed monthly, month to month, and each one includes everything in the one before it.
Foundation
The work every site needs, done properly and kept up every month.
$1,000a month
Month to month
We recommend
Growth
Foundation, plus the pages, articles and links that reach more of your buyers.
$2,500a month
Month to month
Leadership
Growth, plus press outreach, more markets and reporting that follows each lead to revenue.
$5,000a month
Month to month
The price changes only when the scope does, such as a very large catalog, many locations or a move to a new platform, and we agree any change in writing before the work starts.
Questions
Before we start.
Will a redesign or a new domain hurt our SEO?
It can, and it does not have to. Losses come from missing redirects, dropped content and blocked pages, and a plan prevents all three. Some short-term movement is normal while Google processes the change.
How long does traffic take to recover after a migration?
Google says a medium-sized site may need a few weeks for most pages to move, and larger sites need longer. If visits are still down well after that, something specific is wrong, and it can be found.
When should SEO join a migration project?
Before the new URLs and templates are final. At that stage a change costs a conversation. After launch the same change costs a release, plus the traffic lost while everyone waits for it.
How long should we keep the redirects?
At least a year, by Google’s guidance, and longer if you can. Other sites will link to your old addresses for as long as those links exist, and each redirect you remove turns one of them into a dead end.
Can you help after a migration has gone wrong?
Yes. We compare the old site, from archives and your own data, with the new one, find the pages that lost their route, and restore redirects and content in order of value. The sooner that starts, the better the recovery tends to be.
Keep exploring
Find the next useful page.
All SEO servicesExplore the full search program and its specialized services.Technical SEOThe crawl and index review behind every move.Website redesignA new site planned with search in the room from day one.Shopify SEOWhat changes when a store moves onto Shopify.WordPress SEOThemes, plugins and permalinks on the new build.Enterprise SEOMoves that span many templates and teams.
Tell us what is changing and when. We will tell you what is at risk, and what the plan to protect it looks like.
- How your buyers search for what you sell
- Who shows up above you today, and why
- Your website, as Google reads it
Prefer email? Write to hello@wearemachina.com
Prefer to talk? Call (831) 230-7787
What we measureSEO Website Migrations3/3
- Priority pages redirected and matched
- Index coverage after launch
- Organic landings against the pre-launch baseline
Get your free SEO audit
No cost and no commitment.